^^^E  FOURTjajPAR 


'liiii 

/7^ 


Columbia  ©ntteers^ftp 

THE  LIBRARIES 


IN  THE  FOURTH  YEAR 


1[  Mr.  WELLS  has  also  written  the 
following  novels: 

LOVE  AND  ME.  LEWISHAM 

KIPPS 

MR.  POLLY 

THE  WHEELS  OF  CHANCE 

THE  NEW  MACHIAVELLI 

ANN  VERONICA 

TONO    BUNGAY 

MARRIAGE 

BEALBY 

THE  PASSIONATE  FRIENDS 

THE  WIFE  OF  SIR  ISAAC  HARMAN 

THE  RESEARCH  MAGNIFICENT 

MR.  BRITLING  SEES  IT  THROUGH 

THE  SOUL  OF  A  BISHOP 

If  The  following  fantastic  and  im- 
aginative romances: 

THE  WAR  OF  THE  WORLDS 

THE   TIME  MACHINE 

THE  WONDERFUL  VISIT 

THE  ISLAND   OF  DR.  MOREAU 

THE   SEA  LADY 

THE   SLEEPER  AWAKES 

THE  FOOD   OF  THE  GODS 

THE  WAR  IN  THE  AIR 

THE  FIRST  MEN  IN  THE  MOON 

IN  THE  DAYS  OF  THE   COMET 

THE  WORLD  SET  FREE 

And  numerous  Short  Stories  now  collected 
In  One  Volume  under  the  title  of 
THE  COUNTRY  OF  THE  BLIND 

1[  A  Series  of  books  upon  Social, 
Religious  and  Political  questions: 

ANTICIPATIONS  (1900) 

MANKIND  IN  THE  MAKING 

FIRST  AND  LAST  THINGS 

NEW  WORLDS  FOR  OLD 

A  MODERN  UTOPIA 

THE  FUTURE  IN  AMERICA 

AN  ENGLISHMAN   LOOKS  AT  THE 

WORLD 
WHAT  IS  COMING? 
WAR  AND  THE  FUTURE 
GOD  THE  INVISIBLE  KING 

IF  And  two  little  books  about  chil- 
dren's play,  called: 

FLOOR  GAMES  and  LITTLE  WARS 


IN  THE 
FOURTH  YEAR 

ANTICIPATIONS  OF  A  WORLD  PEACE 


BY 

H.  G.  WELLS 

Author  of  "Mr.  Britling  Sees  It  Through,** 
** Italy,  France  and  Britain  at  War,"  etc. 


useto  gotfe 

THE  MAGMIJJAN  'COWPANY 


COPYEIQHT,    1918 
By  H.  G.   WELLS 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  May,  1918 


PREFACE 

In  the  latter  half  of  1914  a  few  of  us  were  writing 
that  this  war  was  a  "  War  of  Ideas."  A  phrase, 
"  The  War  to  end  War/'  got  into  circulation,  amidst 
much  sceptical  comment.  It  was  a  phrase  powerful 
enough  to  sway  many  men,  essentially  pacifists, 
towards  taking  an  active  part  in  the  war  against 
German  imperialism,  but  it  was  a  phrase  whose 
chief  content  was  its  aspiration.  People  were  al- 
ready writing  in  those  early  days  of  disarmament 
and  of  the  abolition  of  the  armament  industry 
throughout  the  world;  they  realized  fully  the  ele- 
ment of  industrial  belligerency  behind  the  shining 
armour  of  imperialism,  and  they  denounced  the 
"  Krupp-Kaiser  "  alliance.  But  against  such  writ- 
ing and  such  thought  we  had  to  count,  in  those 
days,  great  and  powerful  realities.  Even  to  those 
who  expressed  these  ideas  there  lay  visibly  upon 
them  the  shadow  of  impracticability;  they  were 
very  "  advanced ''  ideas  in  1914,  very  Utopian. 
Against  them  was  an  unbroken  mass  of  mental  habit 
and  public  tradition.  While  we  talked  of  this 
"  war  to  end  war,"  the  diplomatists  of  the  Powers 
allied  against  Germany  were  busily  spinning  a  dis- 


vi  PREFACE 

astrous  web  of  greedy  secret  treaties,  were  answer- 
ing aggression  by  schemes  of  aggression,  were  seeing 
in  the  treacherous  violence  of  Germany  only  the  jus- 
tification for  countervailing  evil  acts.  To  them  it 
was  only  another  war  for  "  ascendancy."  That  was 
three  years  and  a  half  ago,  and  since  then  this  ''  war 
of  ideas  "  has  gone  on  to  a  phase  few  of  us  had 
dared  hope  for  in  those  oj^ening  days.  The  Rus- 
sian revolution  put  a  match  to  that  pile  of  secret 
treaties  and  indeed  to  all  the  imperialist  plans  of 
the.  Allies ;  in  the  end  it  will  burn  them  all.  The 
greatest  of  the  Western  Allies  is  now  the  United 
States  of  America,  and  the  Americans  have  come 
into  this  war  simply  for  an  idea.  Three  years  and 
a  half  ago  a  few  of  us  were  saying  this  was  a  war 
against  the  idea  of  imj)erialism,  not  German  im- 
perialism merely,  but  British  and  French  and 
Russian  imperialism,  and  we  were  saying  this  not 
because  it  was  so  but  because  we  hoped  to  see  it 
become  so.  To-day  we  can  say  so,  because  now  it 
is  so. 

In  those  days,  moreover,  we  said  this  is  the  "  war 
to  end  war,"  and  we  still  did  not  know  clearly  how. 
We  thought  in  terms  of  treaties  and  alliances.  It 
is  largely  the  detachment  and  practical  genius  of 
the  great  English-speaking  nation  across  the  Atlan- 
tic that  has  carried  the  world  on  beyond  and 
replaced  that  phrase  by  the  phrase,  ^'  The  League 


PREFACE  vii 

of  Nations,"  a  phrase  suggesting  plainly  the  or- 
ganization of  a  sufficient  instrument  by  which  war 
may  be  ended  for  ever.  In  1913  talk  of  a  World 
League  of  Nations  would  have  seemed,  to  the  ex- 
tremist pitch,  ^'  Utopian."  To-day  the  project  has 
an  air  not  only  of  being  so  practicable,  but  of  being 
so  urgent  and  necessary  and  so  manifestly  the  sane 
thing  before  mankind  that  not  to  be  busied  upon  it, 
not  to  be  making  it  more  widely  known  and  better 
understood,  not  to  be  working  out  its  problems  and 
bringing  it  about,  is  to  be  living  outside  of  the  con- 
temporary life  of  the  world.  For  a  book  upon  any 
other  subject  at  the  present  time  some  apology  may 
be  necessary,  but  a  book  upon  this  subject  is  as 
natural  a  thing  to  produce  now  as  a  pair  of  skates 
in  winter  when  the  ice  begins  to  bear. 

All  we  writers  find  ourselves  engaged  perforce 
in  some  part  or  other  of  a  world-wide  propaganda 
of  this  the  most  creative  and  hopeful  of  political 
ideas  that  has  ever  dawned  upon  the  consciousness 
of  mankind.  With  no  concerted  plan  we  feel  called 
upon  to  serve  it.  And  in  no  connection  would  one 
so  like  to  think  oneself  un-original  as  in  this  con- 
nection. It  would  be  a  dismaying  thing  to  realize 
that  one  were  writing  anything  here  which  was 
not  the  possible  thought  of  great  multitudes  of 
other  people,  and  capable  of  becoming  the  common 
thought  of  mankind.     One  writes  in  such  a  book 


viii  PKEFACE 

as  this  not  to  express  oneself  bnt  to  swell  a 
chorus.  The  idea  of  the  League  of  Nations  is  so 
great  a  one  that  it  may  well  override  the  preten- 
sions and  command  the  allegiance  of  kings;  much 
more  does  it  claim  the  self -subjugation  of  the  jour- 
nalistic writer.  Our  innumerable  books  upon  this 
great  edifice  of  a  World  Peace  do  not  constitute  a 
scramble  for  attention,  but  an  attempt  to  express  in 
every  variety  of  phrase  and  aspect  this  one  system 
of  ideas  which  now^  possesses  us  all.  In  the  same 
way  the  elementary  facts  and  ideas  of  the  science  of 
chemistry  might  conceivably  be  put  completely  and 
fully  into  one  text-book,  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it 
is  far  more  convenient  to  tell  that  same  story  over 
in  a  thousand  different  forms,  in  a  text-book  for 
boys  here,  for  a  different  sort  or  class  of  boy  there, 
for  adult  students,  for  reference,  for  people  expert 
in  mathematics,  for  people  unused  to  the  scientific 
method,  and  so  on.  For  the  last  year  the  writer  has 
been  doing  what  he  can  —  and  a  number  of  other 
writers  have  been  doing  what  they  can  —  to  bring 
about  a  united  declaration  of  all  the  Atlantic  Allies 
in  favour  of  a  League  of  Nations,  and  to  define  the 
necessary  nature  of  that  League.  He  has,  in  the 
course  of  this  work,  written  a  series  of  articles  upon 
the  League  and  upon  the  necessary  sacrifices  of  pre- 
conceptions that  the  idea  involves  in  the  London 
press.     He    has    also    been    trying    to    clear    his 


PREFACE  ix 

own  mind  upon  the  real  meaning  of  that  ambiguous 
word  '^  democracy,"  for  which  the  League  is  to 
make  the  world  "  safe."  The  bulk  of  this  book  is 
made  up  of  these  discussions.  For  a  very  consider- 
able number  of  readers,  it  may  be  well  to  admit  here, 
it  can  have  no  possible  interest ;  they  will  have  come 
at  these  questions  themselves  from  different  angles 
and  they  will  have  long  since  got  to  their  own 
conclusions.  But  there  may  be  others  whose  angle 
of  approach  may  be  similar  to  the  writer  s,  who  may 
have  asked  some  or  most  of  the  questions  he  has  had 
to  ask,  and  who  may  be  actively  interested  in  the 
answers  and  the  working  out  of  the  answers  he  has 
made  to  these  questions.  For  them  this  book  is 
printed. 
May,  1918.  H.  G.  WELLS. 

It  is  a  dangerous  thing  to  recommend  specific  books  out  of 
80  large  and  various  a  literature  as  the  "  League  of  Nations  " 
idea  has  already  produced,  but  the  reader  who  wishes  to  reach 
beyond  the  range  of  this  book,  or  who  does  not  like  its  tone  and 
method,  will  probably  find  something  to  meet  his  needs  and 
tastes  better  in  Marburg's  *'  League  of  Nations,"  a  straightfor- 
ward account  of  the  American  side  of  the  movement  by  the 
former  United  States  Minister  in  Belgium,  on  the  one  hand,  or 
in  the  concluding  parts  of  Mr.  Fayle's  "Great  Settlement" 
(1915),  a  frankly  sceptical  treatment  from  the  British  Im- 
perialist point  of  view,  on  the  other.  An  illuminating  dis- 
cussion, advocating  peace  treaties  rather  than  a  league  is  Sir 
Walter  Phillimore's  "  Three  Centuries  of  Treaties."  Two 
excellent  books  from  America,  that  chance  to  be  on  my  table, 
are   Mr.    Goldsmith's    "  League    to   Enforce   Peace "    and    "  A 


X  PKEFACE 

World  in  Ferment"  by  President  Nicholas  Murray  Butler. 
Mater's  "  Sooi^te  des  Nations"  (Didier)  is  an  able  presen- 
tation of  a  French  point  of  view.  Brailsford's  "  A  League 
of  Nations  "  is  already  a  classic  of  the  movement  in  England, 
and  a  very  full  and  thorough  book  ;  and  Hobson's  "  Towards 
International  Government "  is  a  very  sympathetic  contribution 
from  the  English  Liberal  left,  but  the  reader  must  under- 
stand that  these  two  writers  seem  disposed  to  welcome  a 
I)eace  with  an  unrevolutiouized  Germany,  an  idea  to  which, 
in  common  with  most  British  peoi)le,  I  am  bitterly  opposed. 
Walsh's  "  World  Rebuilt "  is  a  good  exhortation,  and  Mugge's 
"  Parliament  of  Man  "  is  fresh  and  sane  and  able.  The  om- 
nivorous reader  will  find  good  sense  and  quaint  English  in 
Judge  Mejdell's  "  Jus  Gentium "  published  in  English  by 
Olsen's  of  Christiania.  There  is  an  active  League  of  Nations 
Society  in  Dublin,  as  well  as  the  Tendon  and  Washington 
ones,  publishing  pamphlets  and  conducting  propaganda.  All 
these  books  and  pamphlets  I  have  named  happen  to  lie  upon 
my  study  table  as  T  write,  but  I  have  made  no  systematic 
effort  to  get  together  literature  upon  the  subject,  and  prob- 
ably there  are  just  as  many  books  as  good  of  w^hich  I  have 
never  even  heard.  There  must,  I  am  sure,  be  statements  of 
the  League  of  Nations  idea  forthcoming  from  various  religious 
standpoints,  but  I  do  not  know  any  sufficiently  well  to  recom- 
mend them.  It  is  incredible  that  neither  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  the  English  Episcopal  Church  nor  any  Nonconformist 
body  has  made  any  effort  as  an  organization  to  forward  this 
essentially  religious  end  of  peace  on  earth.  And  also  there 
must  be  German  writings  upon  this  same  topic.  I  mention 
these  diverse  sources,  not  in  order  to  present  a  bibliography, 
but  because  I  should  be  sorry  to  have  the  reader  think  that 
this  little  book  pretends  to  state  the  case  rather  than  a  case 
for  the  League  of  Nations. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTKK  PAGE 

I  The  Way  to  Concrete  Realization      .  .  1 

II  The  League  Must  Be  Representative  .  .  15 

III  The  Necessary  Powers  of  the  League  .  .  27 

IV  The  Labour  View  of  Middle  Africa     .  .  40 

V    Getting  the  League  Idea  Clear  in  Rela- 
tion TO  Imperialism 50 

VI    The  War  Aims  of  the  Western  Allies 

Compactly  Stated 79 

VII    The  Future  of  Monarchy 84 

VIII    The  Necessity  for  the  League  of  Free 

Nations 97 

IX    Democracy 112 

X     The   Recent    Struggle   for  Proportional 

Representation  in  Great  Britain     .     .131 

XI     The  Study  and  Propaganda  of  Democracy  148 


IN  THE  FOURTH  YEAR 

THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

I 

THE  WAY  TO  CONCRETE  REALIZATION 

More  and  more  frequently  does  one  hear  this 
phrase,  The  League  of  Nations,  used  to  express 
the  outline  idea  of  the  new  world  that  will  come 
out  of  the  war.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
I^hrase  has  taken  hold  of  the  imaginations  of  great 
multitudes  of  people :  it  is  one  of  those  creative 
phrases  that  may  alter  the  whole  destiny  of  man- 
kind. But  as  yet  it  is  still  a  very  vague  phrase, 
a  cloudy  promise  of  peace.  I  make  no  apology, 
therefore,  for  casting  my  discussion  of  it  in  the 
most  general  terms.  The  idea  is  the  idea  of  united 
human  effort  to  put  an  end  to  wars;  the  first 
practical  question,  that  must  precede  all  others, 
is  how  far  can  we  hope  to  get  to  a  concrete  reali- 
zation of  that? 

But  first  let  me  note  the  fourth  word  in  the 


2   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

second  title  of  this  book.  The  common  talk  is  of 
a  ^^  League  of  Nations  "  merely.  I  follow  the  man 
who  is,  more  than  any  other  man,  the  leader  of 
English  political  thought  throughout  the  world 
to-day,  President  Wilson,  in  inserting  that  signifi- 
cant adjective  *'  Free."  We  western  allies  know 
to-day  what  is  involved  in  making  bargains  with 
governments  that  do  not  stand  for  their  peoples; 
w^e  have  had  all  our  Russian  deal,  for  example, 
repudiated  and  thrust  back  upon  our  hands;  and 
it  is  clearly  in  his  mind,  as  it  must  be  in  the  minds 
of  all  reasonable  men,  that  no  mere  "  scrap  of 
paper,"  with  just  a  monarch's  or  a  chancellor's 
endorsement,  is  a  good  enough  earnest  of  fellowship 
in  the  league.  It  cannot  be  a  diplomatists'  league. 
The  League  of  Nations,  if  it  is  to  have  any  such 
effect  as  people  seem  to  hope  from  it,  must  be,  in 
the  first  place,  "  understanded  of  the  people."  It 
must  be  supported  by  sustained,  deliberate  explan- 
ation, and  by  teaching  in  school  and  church  and 
press  of  the  whole  mass  of  all  the  peoples  concerned. 
I  underline  the  adjective  "  Free  "  here  to  set  aside, 
once  for  all,  any  possible  misconception  that  this 
modern  idea  of  a  League  of  Nations  has  any  aflQnity 
to  that  Holy  Alliance  of  the  diplomatists,  which 
set  out  to  keep  the  peace  of  Europe  so  disastrously 
a  century  ago. 

Later  I  will  discuss  the  powers  of  the  League. 


THE  LEAGUE  OP  FREE  NATIONS   3 

But  before  I  come  to  that  I  would  like  to  say  a 
little  about  the  more  general  question  of  its  nature 
and  authority.  What  sort  of  gathering  will  em- 
body it?  The  suggestions  made  range  from  a  mere 
advisory  body,  rather  like  the  Hague  convention, 
which  will  merely  pronounce  on  the  rights  and 
wrongs  of  any  international  conflict,  to  the  idea  of 
a  sort  of  Super-State,  a  Parliament  of  Mankind, 
a  "  Super  National  "  Authority,  practically  taking 
over  the  sovereignty  of  the  existing  states  and 
empires  of  the  world.  Most  people's  ideas  of  the 
League  fall  between  these  extremes.  They  want 
the  League  to  be  something  more  than  an  ethical 
court,  they  w^ant  a  League  that  will  act,  but  on  the 
other  hand  they  shrink  from  any  loss  of  ''  our 
independence.'^  There  seems  to  be  a  conflict  here. 
There  is  a  real  need  for  many  people  to  tidy  up 
their  ideas  at  this  point.  We  cannot  have  our 
cake  and  eat  it.  If  association  is  worth  while, 
there  must  be  some  sacrifice  of  freedom  to  associa- 
tion. As  a  very  distinguished  colonial  representa- 
tive said  to  me  the  other  day :  "  Here  we  are 
talking  of  the  freedom  of  small  nations  and  the 
*  self-determination  '  of  peoples,  and  at  the  same 
time  of  the  Council  of  the  League  of  Nations  and 
all  sorts  of  international  controls.  AVhich  do  we 
want?  '* 
The  answer,  I  think,  is  "  Both.''     It  is  a  matter 


4   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

of  more  or  less,  of  getting  the  best  thing  at  the  cost 
of  the  second-best.  We  may  want  to  relax  an  old 
association  in  order  to  make  a  newer  and  wider 
one.  It  is  quite  understandable  that  peoples  aware 
of  a  distinctive  national  character  and  involved  in 
some  big  existing  political  complex,  should  wish  to 
disentangle  themselves  from  one  group  of  associa- 
tions in  order  to  enter  more  effectively  into  another, 
a  greater,  and  more  satisfactory  one.  The  Finn  or 
the  Pole,  who  has  hitherto  been  a  rather  reluctant 
member  of  the  synthesis  of  the  Eussian  empire,  may 
w^ell  wish  to  end  that  attachment  in  order  to  become 
a  free  member  of  a  world-wide  brotherhood.  The 
desire  for  free  arrangement  is  not  a  desire  for  chaos. 
There  is  such  a  thing  as  untying  your  parcels  in 
order  to  pack  them  better,  and  I  do  not  see  myself 
how  we  can  possibly  contemplate  a  great  league 
of  freedom  and  reason  in  the  world  without  a 
considerable  amount  of  such  preliminary  dissolu- 
tion. 

It  happens,  very  fortunately  for  the  world,  that 
a  century  and  a  quarter  ago  thirteen  various  and 
very  jealous  states  worked  out  the  problem  of  a 
Union,  and  became  —  after  an  enormous,  exhaust- 
ing wrangle  —  the  United  States  of  America.  Now 
the  way  they  solved  their  riddle  was  by  delegating 
and  giving  over  jealously  specified  sovereign  powers 
and  doing  all  that  was  possible  to  retain  the  resi- 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS    5 

duiim.  They  remained  essentially  sovereign  states. 
New  York,  Virginia,  Massachusetts,  for  example, 
remained  legally  independent.  The  practical  fu- 
sion of  these  peoples  into  one  ])eople  outran  the 
legal  bargain.  It  was  only  after  long  years  of  dis- 
cussion that  the  point  was  conceded ;  it  was  indeed 
only  after  the  Civil  War  that  the  implications  were 
fully  established,  that  there  resided  a  sovereignty 
in  the  American  people  as  a  whole,  as  distinguished 
from  the  peoples  of  the  several  states.  This  is  a 
precedent  that  every  one  who  talks  about  the  League 
of  Nations  should  bear  in  mind.  These  states  set 
up  a  congress  and  president  in  Washington  with 
strictly  delegated  powers.  That  congress  and 
president  they  delegated  to  look  after  certain 
common  interests,  to  deal  with  interstate  trade,  to 
deal  with  foreign  powers,  to  maintain  a  supreme 
court  of  law.  Everything  else  —  education, 
militia,  powers  of  life  and  death  —  the  states  re- 
tained for  themselves.  To  this  day,  for  instance, 
the  federal  courts  and  the  federal  officials  have 
no  poAver  to  interfere  to  proiect  the  lives  or  prop- 
erty of  aliens  in  any  part  of  the  union  outside  the 
District  of  Columbia.  The  state  governments  still 
see  to  that.  The  federal  government  has  the  legal 
right  perhaps  to  intervene,  but  it  is  still  chary  of 
such  intervention.  And  these  states  of  the  Ameri- 
can Union  were  at  the  outset  so  independent-spir- 


G   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

ited  that  tliey  would  not  even  adopt  a  common 
name.  To  this  day  they  have  no  common  name. 
We  have  to  call  them  Americans,  which  is  a  ridicu- 
lous name  when  we  consider  that  Canada,  Mexico, 
Peru,  Brazil  are  all  of  them  also  in  America.  Or 
else  we  have  to  call  them  Virginians,  Californians, 
New  Englanders,  and  so  forth.  Their  legal  and 
nominal  separateness  weighs  nothing  against  the 
real  fusion  that  their  great  league  has  now  made 
possible. 

Now,  that  clearly  is  a  precedent  of  the  utmost 
value  in  our  schemes  for  this  council  of  the  League 
of  Nations.  We  must  begin  by  delegating,  as  the 
States  began  by  delegating.  It  is  a  far  cry  to  the 
time  when  we  shall  talk  and  think  of  the  Sovereign 
People  of  the  Earth.  That  council  of  the  League 
of  Nations  will  be  a  tie  as  strong,  we  hope,  but 
certainly  not  so  close  and  multiplex  as  the  early 
tie  of  the  States  at  Washington.  It  will  begin 
by  having  certain  delegated  powers  and  no  others. 
It  will  be  an  ^'  ad  hoc  '^  body.  Later  its  powers 
may  grow  as  mankind  becomes  accustomed  to 
it.  But  at  first  it  will  have,  directly  or  medi- 
ately, all  the  powers  that  seem  necessary  to  restrain 
the  world  from  war  —  and  unless  I  know  nothing  of 
patriotic  jealousies  it  will  have  not  a  scrap  of 
power  more.  The  danger  is  much  more  that  its 
powers  will  be  insufficient  than  that  they  will  be  ex- 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS    7 

cessive.  Of  that  later.  What  I  want  to  discuss 
here  now  is  the  constitution  of  this  delegated 
body.  I  want  to  discuss  that  first  in  order  to  set 
aside  out  of  the  discussion  certain  fantastic  notions 
that  will  otherwise  get  very  seriously  in  our  way. 
Fantastic  as  they  are,  they  have  played  a  large  part 
in  reducing  the  Hague  Trilmnal  to  an  ineffective 
squeak  amidst  the  thunders  of  this  war. 

A  number  of  gentlemen  scheming  out  world  unity 
in  studies  have  begun  their  proposals  with  the  sim- 
ple suggestion  that  each  sovereign  power  should 
send  one  mend)er  to  the  projected  parliament  of 
mankind.  This  has  a  pleasant  democratic  air;  one 
sovei'eign  state,  one  vote.  Now  let  us  run  over  a 
list  of  sovereign  states  and  see  to  what  this  leads  us. 
We  find  our  list  includes  the  British  Empire,  with 
a  population  of  four  hundred  millions,  of  which 
probably  half  can  read  and  write  some  language  or 
other;  Bogota  with  a  population  of  a  million,  mostly 
poets;  Hayti  with  a  population  of  a  million  and  a 
third,  almost  entirely  illiterate  and  liable  at  any 
time  to  further  political  disruption;  Andorra  with 
a  population  of  four  or  five  thousand  souls.  The 
mere  suggestion  of  equal  representation  between 
such  "  powers  "  is  enough  to  make  the  British  Em- 
pire burst  into  a  thousand  (voting)  fragments.  A 
certain  concession  to  population,  one  must  admit, 
was  made  by  the  theorists;  a  state  of  over  three 


8   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FEEE  NATIONS 

millions  got,  if  I  remember  rightly,  two  delegates, 
and  if  over  twenty,  three,  and  some  of  the  small 
states  were  given  a  kind  of  intermittent  appearance, 
they  only  came  every  other  time  or  something  of 
that  sort;  but  at  The  Hague  things  still  remained 
in  such  a  posture  that  three  or  four  minute  and 
backward  states  could  outvote  the  British  Empire 
or  the  United  States.  Therein  lies  the  clue  to 
the  insignificance  of  The  Hague.  Such  projects  as 
these  are  idle  projects  and  we  must  put  them  out 
of  our  heads;  they  are  against  nature;  the  great 
nations  w  ill  not  suffer  them  for  a  moment. 

But  when  we  dismiss  this  idea  of  representation 
by  states,  we  are  left  with  the  problem  of  the  pro- 
portion of  representation  and  of  relative  weight  in 
the  Council  of  the  League  on  our  hands.  It  is  the 
sort  of  problem  that  appeals  terribly  to  the  ingen- 
ious. We  cannot  solve  it  by  making  population  a 
basis,  because  that  will  give  a  monstrous  import- 
ance to  the  illiterate  millions  of  India  and  China. 
Ingenious  statistical  schemes  have  been  framed  in 
which  the  number  of  university  graduates  and  the 
steel  output  come  in  as  multipliers,  but  for  my  own 
part  I  am  not  greatly  impressed  by  statistical 
schemes.  At  the  risk  of  seeming  something  of  a 
Prussian,  I  would  like  to  insist  upon  certain  brute 
facts.  The  business  of  tlie  League  of  Nations  is  to 
keep  the  peace  of  the  w^orld  and  nothing  else.     No 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS   9 

power  will  ever  dare  to  break  the  peace  of  the  world 
if  the  powers  that  are  capable  of  making  war  under 
modern  conditions  say  "  2Vo.''  And  there  are  only 
four  powers  certainly  capable  at  the  present  time 
of  producing  the  men  and  materials  needed  for  a 
modern  war  in  sufiScient  abundance  to  go  on  fight- 
ing: Britain,  France,  Germany,  and  the  United 
States.  There  are  three  others  which  are  very 
doubtfully  capable:  Italy,  Japan,  and  Austria. 
Russia  I  will  mark  —  it  is  all  that  one  can  do  with 
Russia  just  now  —  with  a  note  of  interrogation. 
Some  day  China  may  be  war  capable  —  I  hope 
never,  but  it  is  a  possibility.  Personally  I  don't 
think  that  any  other  power  on  earth  would  have  a 
ghost  of  a  chance  to  resist  the  will  —  if  it  could  be 
an  honestly  united  will  —  of  the  first-named  four. 
All  the  rest  fight  by  the  sanction  of  and  by  associa- 
tion with  these  leaders.  They  can  only  fight  be- 
cause of  the  split  will  of  the  war-complete  powers. 
Some  are  forced  to  fight  by  that  very  division. 

No  one  can  vie  with  me  in  my  appreciation  of 
the  civilization  of  Switzerland,  Sweden,  or  Holland, 
but  the  plain  fact  of  the  case  is  that  such  powers 
are  absolutely  incapable  of  uttering  an  effective 
protest  against  war.  Far  less  so  are  your  Haytis 
and  Liberias.  The  preservation  of  the  world -])eace 
rests  with  the  great  powers  and  with  the  great 
powers  alone.     If  they  have  the  will  for  peace,  it  is 


10   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

peace.  If  they  have  not,  it  is  conflict.  The  four 
powers  I  have  named  can  now,  if  they  see  fit,  dic- 
tate the  peace  of  the  world  for  ever. 

Let  us  keep  our  grip  on  that.  Peace  is  the 
business  of  the  great  powers  primarily.  Steel  out- 
put, university  graduates,  and  so  forth  may  be  con- 
venient secondary  criteria,  may  be  useful  ways  of 
measuring  war  efficiency,  but  the  meat  and  sub- 
stance of  the  Council  of  the  League  of  Nations  must 
embody  the  wills  of  those  leading  peoples.  They 
can  give  an  enduring  peace  to  the  little  nations  and 
the  whole  of  mankind.  It  can  arrive  in  no  other 
way.  So  I  take  it  that  the  Council  of  an  ideal 
League  of  Nations  must  consist  chiefly  of  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  great  belligerent  powers,  and  that 
the  representatives  of  the  minor  allies  and  of  the 
neutrals  —  essential  though  their  presence  will  be 
—  must  not  be  allowed  to  swamp  the  voices  of  these 
larger  masses  of  mankind. 

And  this  state  of  affairs  may  come  about  more 
easily  than  logical,  statistical-minded  people  may 
be  disposed  to  think.  Our  first  impulse,  when  we 
discuss  the  League  of  Nations  idea,  is  to  think  of 
some  very  elaborate  and  definite  scheme  of  members 
on  the  model  of  existing  legislative  bodies,  called 
together  one  hardly  knows  how,  and  sitting  in  a 
specially  built  League  of  Nations  Congress  House. 
All  schemes  are  more  methodical  than  reality.     We 


THE  LEAGUE  OP  FREE  NATIONS      11 

think  of  somebody,  learned  and  "  expert,"  in  spec- 
tacles, with  a  thin  clear  voice,  reading  over  the 
"  Projected  Constitution  of  a  League  of  Nations  " 
to  an  attentive  and  respectful  Peace  Congress. 
But  there  is  a  more  natural  way  to  a  league  than 
that.  Instead  of  being  made  like  a  machine,  the 
League  of  Nations  may  come  about  like  a  marriage. 
The  Peace  Congress  that  must  sooner  or  later  meet 
may  itself  become,  after  a  time,  the  Council  of  a 
League  of  Nations.  The  League  of  Nations  may 
come  upon  us  by  degrees,  almost  imperceptibly.  I 
am  strongly  obsessed  by  the  idea  that  that  Peace 
Congress  will  necessarily  become  —  and  that  it  is 
highly  desirable  that  it  should  become  —  a  most 
prolonged  and  persistent  gathering.  Why  should 
it  not  become  at  length  a  permanent  gathering, 
inviting  representatives  to  aid  its  deliberations 
from  the  neutral  states,  and  gradually  adjusting 
itself  to  conditions  of  permanency? 

I  can  conceive  no  such  Peace  Congress  as  those 
that  have  settled  up  after  other  wars,  settling  up 
after  this  war.  Not  only  has  the  war  been  enor- 
mously bigger  than  any  other  war,  but  it  has  struck 
deeper  at  the  foundations  of  social  and  economic 
life.  I  doubt  if  we  begin  to  realize  how  much  of 
the  old  system  is  dead  to  day,  how  much  has  to  be 
remade.  Since  the  beginnings  of  history  there  has 
been  a  credible  promise  of  gold  payments  under- 


12   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

neath  our  financial  arrangements.  It  is  now  an 
incredible  promise.  The  value  of  a  pound  note 
waves  about  while  you  look  at  it.  What  will  hap- 
pen to  it  when  peace  comes  no  man  can  tell.  Nor 
Avhat  will  happen  to  the  mark.  The  rouble  has 
gone  into  the  Abyss.  Our  giddy  money  specialists 
clutch  their  handful s  of  paper  and  watch  it  flying 
down  the  steep.  Much  as  we  may  hate  the  Ger- 
mans, some  of  us  Avill  have  to  sit  down  with  some 
of  the  enemy  to  arrange  a  common  scheme  for  the 
preservation  of  credit  in  money.  And  I  presume 
that  it  is  not  proposed  to  end  this  war  in  a  wild 
scramble  of  buyers  for  such  food  as  remains  in  the 
world.  There  is  a  shortage  now,  a  greater  short- 
age ahead  of  the  world,  and  there  will  be  shortages 
of  supply  at  the  source  and  transport  in  food  and 
all  raw  materials  for  some  years  to  come.  Tlie 
Peace  Congress  will  have  to  sit  and  organize  a 
share-out  and  distribution  and  reorganization  of 
these  shattered  supplies.  It  will  have  to  Rhondda 
the  nations.  Probably,  too,  we  shall  have  to  deal 
collectively  with  a  pestilence  before  we  are  out  of 
the  mess.  Then  there  are  such  little  jobs  as  the 
reconstruction  of  Belgium  and  Serbia.  There  are 
considerable  rectifications  of  boundaries  to  be  made. 
There  are  fresh  states  to  be  created,  in  Poland  and 
Armenia  for  example.  About  all  these  smaller 
states,  new  and  old,  that  the  peace  must  call  into 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS      13 

being,  there  must  be  a  system  of  guarantees  of 
the  most  difficult  and  complicated  sort. 

I  do  not  see  the  Press  Congress  getting  through 
such  matters  as  these  in  a  session  of  weeks  or 
months.  The  idea  the  Germans  betrajed  at  Brest, 
that  things  were  going  to  be  done  in  the  Versailles 
fashion  by  great  moustached  heroes  frowning  and 
drawing  lines  with  a  large  black  soldierly  thumb- 
nail across  maps,  is  —  old-fashioned.  They  have 
made  their  eastern  treaties,  it  is  true,  in  this  mode, 
but  they  are  still  looking  for  some  really  responsi- 
ble government  to  keep  them  now  that  they  are 
made.  From  first  to  last  clearly  the  main  peace 
negotiations  are  going  to  follow  unprecedented 
courses.  Tliis  preliminary  discussion  of  w^ar  aims 
by  means  of  great  public  speeches,  that  has  been  get- 
ting more  and  more  explicit  now  for  many  months, 
is  quite  unprecedented.  Apparently  all  the  broad 
preliminaries  are  to  be  stated  and  accepted  in  the 
sight  of  all  mankind  before  even  an  armistice  oc- 
curs on  the  main,  the  western  front.  The  German 
diplomatists  hate  this  process.  So  do  a  lot  of 
ours.  So  do  some  of  the  diplomatic  Frenchmen. 
The  German  junkers  are  dodging  and  lying,  they 
are  fighting  desperately  to  keep  back  everything 
they  possibly  can  for  the  bargaining  and  bullying 
and  table-banging  of  the  council  chamber,  but  that 
way  there  is  no  peace.    And  when  at  last  Germany 


14   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

says  snip  sufficiently  to  the  Allies'  snap,  and  the 
Peace  Congress  begins,  it  will  almost  certainly  be 
as  unprecedented  as  its  prelude.  Before  it  meets, 
the  broad  lines  of  the  settlement  will  have  been 
drawn  plainly  with  the  approval  of  the  mass  of 
mankind. 


II 

THE  LEAGUE  MUST  BE  REPRESENTATIVE 

A  Peace  Congress,  growmg  permanent,  then,  may 
prove  to  be  the  most  practical  and  convenient 
embodiment  of  this  idea  of  a  League  of  Nations 
that  has  taken  possession  of  the  imagination  of  the 
world.  A  most  necessary  preliminary  to  a  Peace 
Congress,  with  such  possibilities  inherent  in  it, 
must  obviously  be  the  meeting  and  organization  of  a 
preliminary  League  of  the  Allied  Nations.  That 
point  I  would  now  enlarge. 

Half  a  world  peace  is  better  than  none.  There 
seems  no  reason  whatever  why  the  world  should 
wait  for  the  Central  Powers  before  it  begins  this 
necessary  work.  Mr.  McCurdy  has  been  asking 
lately,  "Why  not  the  League  of  Nations  nowf^' 
That  is  a  question  a  great  number  of  i)eople  would 
like  to  echo  very  heartily.  The  nearer  the  Allies 
can  come  to  a  League  of  Free  Nations  before  the 
Peace  Congress  the  more  prospect  there  is  that  that 
body  will  approximate  in  nature  to  a  League  of 
Nations  for  the  whole  world. 

In  one  most  unexpected  quarter  the  same  idea 
has  been   endorsed.     The   King's   Speech    on   the 

15 


16   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

prorogation  of  Parliament  this  February  was  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  royal  utterances  that  have 
ever  been  made  from  the  British  throne.  There 
was  less  of  the  old-fashioned  King  and  more  of  the 
modern  President  about  it  than  the  most  republican- 
minded  of  us  could  have  anticipated.  For  the  first 
time  in  a  King's  Speech  we  heard  of  the  ^'  democra- 
cies ''  of  the  world,  and  there  was  a  clear  claim  that 
the  Allies  at  present  fighting  the  Central  Powers 
did  themselves  constitute  a  League  of  Nations. 

But  we  must  admit  that  at  present  they  do  so 
only  in  a  very  rhetorical  sense.  There  is  no  real 
council  of  empowered  representatives,  and  nothing 
in  the  nature  of  a  united  front  has  been  prepared. 
Unless  we  provide  beforehand  for  something  more 
effective,  Italy,  France,  the  United  States,  Japan, 
and  this  country  will  send  separate  groups  of  repre- 
sentatives, with  separate  instructions,  unequal 
status,  and  very  probably  conflicting  views  upon 
many  subjects,  to  the  ultimate  peace  discussions. 
It  is  quite  conceivable  —  it  is  a  very  serious  danger 
—  that  at  this  discussion  skilful  diplomacy  on  the 
part  of  the  Central  Powers  may  open  a  cleft  among 
the  Allies  that  has  never  appeared  during  the  actual 
war.  Have  the  British  settled,  for  example,  with 
Italy  and  France  for  the  supply  of  metallurgical 
coal  after  the  war?  Those  countries  must  have  it 
somehow.     Across  the  board  Germany  can  make 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS      17 

some  tempting  bids  in  that  respect.  Or  take  an- 
other question :  Have  the  British  arrived  at  com- 
mon views  with  France,  Belgium,  Portugal,  and 
South  Africa  about  the  administration  of  Central 
Africa?  Suppose  Germany  makes  sudden  propos- 
als affecting  native  labour  that  win  over  the  Portu- 
guese and  the  Boers?  There  are  a  score  of  such 
points  upon  which  we  shall  find  the  Allied  repre- 
sentatives haggling  with  each  other  in  the  presence 
of  the  enemy  if  they  have  not  been  settled  before- 
hand. 

It  is  the  plainest  common  sense  that  w^e  should 
be  fixing  up  all  such  matters  with  our  Allies  now, 
and  knitting  together  a  common  front  for  the  final 
deal  with  German  Imperialism.  And  these  things 
are  not  to  be  done  effectively  and  bindingly  nowa- 
days by  official  gentlemen  in  discreet  undertones. 
They  need  to  be  done  with  the  full  knowledge  and 
authority  of  the  participating  peoples. 

The  Russian  example  has  taught  the  world  the 
instability  of  diplomatic  bargains  in  a  time  of  such 
fundamental  issues  as  the  present.  There  is  little 
hope  and  little  strength  in  hole-and-corner  bargain- 
ings between  the  officials  or  politicians  who  happen 
to  be  at  the  head  of  this  or  that  nation  for  the  time 
being.  Our  Labour  people  will  not  stand  this  sort 
of  thing  and  they  will  not  be  bound  by  it.  There 
will  be  the  plain  danger  of  repudiation  for  all 


18   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

arrangements  made  in  that  fashion.  A  gathering 
of  somebody  or  other  approved  by  the  British 
Foreign  Office  and  of  somebody  or  other  approved 
by  the  French  Foreign  Office,  of  somebody  with 
vague  powers  from  America,  and  so  on  and  so  on, 
will  be  an  entirely  ineffective  gathering.  But  that 
is  the  sort  of  gathering  of  the  Allies  we  have  been 
having  hitherto,  and  that  is  the  sort  of  gathering 
that  is  likeh'  to  continue  unless  there  is  a  consider- 
able expression  of  opinion  in  favour  of  something 
more  representative  and  responsible. 

Even  our  Foreign  Office  must  be  aware  that  in 
every  country  in  the  world  there  is  now  bitter 
suspicion  of  and  keen  hostility  towards  merely  dip- 
lomatic representatives.  One  of  the  most  signifi- 
cant features  of  the  time  is  the  evident  desire  of  the 
Labour  movement  in  every  European  country  to 
take  part  in  a  collateral  conference  of  Labour  that 
shall  meet  when  and  where  the  Peace  Congress 
does  and  deliberate  and  comment  on  its  proceedings. 
For  a  year  now  the  demand  of  the  masses  for  such 
a  Labour  conference  has  been  growing.  It  marks 
a  distrust  of  officialdom  whose  intensity  officialdom 
would  do  well  to  ponder.  But  it  is  the  natural 
consequence  of,  it  is  the  popular  attempt  at  a  cor- 
rective to,  the  aloofness  and  obscurity  that  have 
hitherto  been  so  evil  a  characteristic  of  inter- 
national negotiations.     I  do  not  think  Labour  and 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS      19 

intelligent  people  anywhere  are  going  to  be  fobbed 
off  with  an  old-fashioned  diplomatic  gathering  as 
being  that  League  of  Free  Nations  they  demand. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  do  not  contemplate  this 
bi-cameral  conference  with  the  diplomatists  trying 
to  best  and  humbug  the  Labour  people  as  well  as 
each  other  and  the  Labour  people  getting  more  and 
more  irritated,  suspicious,  and  extremist,  with 
anything  but  dread.  The  Allied  countries  must  go 
into  the  conference  solid,  and  they  can  only  hope 
to  do  that  by  heeding  and  incorporating  Labour 
ideas  before  they  come  to  the  conference.  The  only 
alternative  that  I  can  see  to  this  unsatisfactory 
prospect  of  a  Peace  Congress  sitting  side  by  side 
with  a  dissentient  and  probably  revolutionary 
Labour  and  Socialist  convention  —  both  gatherings 
with  unsatisfactory  credentials  contradicting  one 
another  and  drifting  to  opposite  extremes  —  is  that 
the  delegates  the  Allied  Powers  send  to  the  Peace 
Conference  (the  same  delegates  which,  if  they  are 
wise,  they  will  have  previously  sent  to  a  preliminary 
League  of  Allied  Nations  to  discuss  their  common 
action  at  the  Peace  Congress)  should  be  elected  ad 
hoc  upon  democratic  lines. 

I  know  that  this  will  be  a  very  shocking  pro 
posal  to  all  our  able  specialists  in  foreign  policy. 
They  will  talk  at  once  about  the  "  ignorance  "  of 
people  like  the  Labour  leaders  and  myself  about 


20   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FEEE  NATIONS 

such  matters,  and  so  on.  What  do  we  know  of  the 
treaty  of  so-and-so  that  was  signed  in  the  year 
seventeen  something?  —  and  so  on.  To  which  the 
answer  is  that  we  ought  not  to  have  been  kept 
ignorant  of  these  things.  A  day  will  come  when 
the  Foreign  Offices  of  all  countries  will  have  to 
recognize  that  what  the  people  do  not  know  of 
international  agreements  "  ain't  facts."  A  secret 
treaty  is  only  binding  upon  the  persons  in  the 
secret.  But  what  I,  as  a  sample  common  person, 
am  not  ignorant  of  is  this :  that  the  business  that 
goes  on  at  the  Peace  Congress  will  either  make  or 
mar  the  lives  of  every  one  I  care  for  in  the  world, 
and  that  somehow,  by  representative  or  what  not, 
/  have  to  he  there.  The  Peace  Congress  deals  with 
the  blood  and  happiness  of  my  children  and  the 
future  of  my  world.  Speaking  as  oue  of  the  hun- 
dreds of  millions  of  "  rank  outsiders  "  in  public 
affairs,  I  do  not  mean  to  respect  any  peace  treaty 
that  may  end  this  war  unless  I  am  honestly  repre- 
sented at  its  uuiking.  I  think  everywhere  there  is 
a  tendency  in  people  to  follow  the  Russian  example 
to  this  extent  and  to  repudiate  bargains  in  which 
they  have  had  no  voice. 

I  do  not  see  that  any  genuine  realization  of  the 
hopes  with  which  all  this  talk  about  the  League 
of  Nations  is  charged  can  be  possible,  unless  the 
two  bodies  which  should  naturally  lead  up  to  the 


THE  T.EAGUE  OF  FEEE  NATIONS      21 

League  of  Nations  —  that  is  to  say,  firstly,  the 
Conference  of  the  Allies,  and  then  the  Peace 
Congress  —  are  elected  bodies,  speaking  confidently 
for  the  whole  mass  of  the  peoples  behind  them.  It 
may  be  a  troublesome  thing  to  elect  them,  but  it 
will  involve  much  more  troublesome  consequences 
if  they  are  not  elected.  This,  I  think,  is  one  of  the 
considerations  for  which  many  people's  minds  are 
still  unprepared.  But  nnless  we  are  to  have  over 
again  after  all  this  bloodshed  and  effort  some  such 
"  Peace  with  Honour  -'  foolery  as  w^e  had  performed 
by  "  Dizzy "  and  Salisbury  at  that  fatal  Berlin 
Conference  in  which  this  present  war  w^as  begotten, 
we  must  sit  up  to  this  novel  proposal  of  electoral 
representation  in  the  peace  negotiations.  Some- 
thing more  than  common  sense  binds  our  statesmen 
to  this  idea.  They  are  morally  pledged  to  it. 
President  Wilson  and  our  British  and  French 
spokesmen  alike  have  said  over  and  over  again  that 
they  want  to  deal  not  with  the  Hohenzollerns  but 
with  the  German  people.  In  other  w-ords,  w^e  have 
demanded  elected  representatives  from  the  German 
people  with  whom  we  may  deal,  and  how  can  we 
make  a  demand  of  that  sort  unless  we  on  our  part 
are  already  prepared  to  send  our  own  elected  rep- 
resentatives to  meet  them?  It  is  up  to  us  to  indi- 
cate by  our  own  practice  how  we  on  our  side, 
professing  as  we  do  to  act  for  democracies,  to  make 


22   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

democracy  safe  on  the  earth,  and  so  on,  intend  to 
meet  this  new  occasion. 

Yet  it  has  to  be  remarked  that,  so  far,  not  one 
of  the  League  of  Nations  projects  I  have  seen  have 
included  any  practicable  proposals  for  the  appoint- 
ment of  delegates  either  to  that  ultimate  body  or  to 
its  two  necessary  predecessors,  the  Council  of  the 
Allies  and  the  Peace  Congress.  It  is  evident  that 
here,  again,  we  are  neglecting  to  get  on  with  some- 
thing of  very  urgent  importance.  I  will  venture, 
therefore,  to  say  a  word  or  two  here  about  the 
possible  way  in  which  a  modern  community  may 
appoint  its  international  representatives. 

And  here,  again,  I  turn  from  any  European 
precedents  to  that  political  outcome  of  the  British 
mind,  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  (Be- 
cause we  must  always  remember  that  while  our 
political  institutions  in  Britain  are  a  patch-up  of 
feudalism,  Tudor,  Stuart,  and  Hanoverian  mon- 
archist traditions  and  urgent  merely  European 
necessities,  a  patch -up  that  has  been  made  quasi- 
democratic  in  a  series  of  afterthoughts,  the 
American  Constitution  is  a  real,  deliberate  creation 
of  the  English-speaking  intelligence.)  The  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  then,  we  have  to  note, 
is  elected  in  a  most  extraordinary  way,  and  in  a 
way  that  has  now  the  justification  of  very  great 
successes  indeed.     On  several  occasions  the  United 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS      23 

States  has  acliieved  indisputable  greatness  in  its 
Presidents,  and  very  rarely  has  it  failed  to  set  up 
very  leaderly  and  distinguished  men.  It  is  worth 
while,  therefore,  to  inquire  how  this  President  is 
elected.  He  is  neither  elected  directly  by  the  people 
nor  appointed  by  any  legislative  body.  He  is 
chosen  by  a  special  college  elected  by  the  jjeople. 
This  college  exists  to  elect  him;  it  meets,  elects 
him,  and  disperses.  (I  will  not  here  go  into  the 
preliminary  complications  that  makes  the  election 
of  a  President  follow  upon  a  preliminary  election 
of  two  Presidential  Candidates.  The  point  I  am 
making  here  is  that  he  is  a  specially  selected  man 
chosen  ad  hoc.)  Is  there  any  reason  why  we  should 
not  adopt  this  method  in  this  new  necessity  we  are 
under  of  sending  representatives,  first,  to  the  long 
ON'erdue  and  necessary  Allied  Council,  then  to  the 
Peace  Congress,  and  then  to  the  hoped-for  Council 
of  the  League  of  Nations? 

I  am  anxious  here  only  to  start  for  discussion 
the  idea  of  an  electoral  representation  of  the  nations 
upon  these  three  bodies  that  must  in  succession 
set  themselves  to  define,  organize,  and  maintain 
the  peace  of  the  world.  I  do  not  wish  to  compli- 
cate the  question  by  any  too  explicit  advocacy  of 
methods  of  election  or  the  like.  In  the  United 
States  this  college  which  elects  the  President  is 
elected  on  the  same  register  of  voters  as  that  which 


24   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

elects  the  Senate  and  Congress,  and  at  the  same 
time.  But  I  suppose  if  we  are  to  give  a  popular 
mandate  to  the  three  or  five  or  twelve  or  twenty 
(or  whatever  number  it  is)  men  to  whom  we  are 
going  to  entrust  our  Empire's  share  in  this  great 
task  of  the  peace  negotiations,  it  will  be  more 
decisive  of  the  will  of  the  whole  nation  if  the  college 
that  had  to  appoint  them  is  elected  at  a  special 
election.  I  suppose  that  the  great  British  common- 
weals over-seas,  at  present  not  represented  in  Par- 
liament, would  also  and  separately  at  the  same  time 
elect  colleges  to  appoint  their  representatives.  I 
suppose  there  would  be  at  least  one  Indian  repre- 
sentative elected,  perhaps  by  some  special  electoral 
conference  of  Indian  X)rinces  and  leading  men.  The 
chief  defect  of  the  American  Presidential  election 
is  that  as  the  old  single  vote  method  of  election  is 
employed  it  has  to  be  fought  on  purely  party  lines. 
He  is  the  selectman  of  the  Democratic  half,  or  of  the 
Republican  half  of  the  nation.  He  is  not  the  select- 
man of  the  whole  nation.  It  would  give  a  far  more 
representative  character  to  the  electoral  college  if  it 
could  be  elected  by  fair  modern  methods,  if  for  this 
particular  purpose  parliamentary  constituencies 
could  be  grouped  and  the  clean  scientific  method 
of  proportional  representation  could  be  used.  But 
I  suppose  the  party  politician  in  this,  as  in  most 
of  our  affairs,  must  still  have  his  pound  of  our  flesh 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS   25 

—  and  we  must  reckon  with  him  later  for  the  blood- 
shed. 

These  are  all,  however,  secondary  considerations. 
The  above  paragraph  is,  so  to  speak,  in  the  nature 
of  a  footnote.  The  fundamental  matter,  if  we  are 
to  get  towards  any  realization  of  this  ideal  of  a 
world  peace  sustained  by  a  League  of  Nations,  is 
to  get  straight  away  to  the  conception  of  direct 
special  electoral  mandates  in  this  matter.  At 
present  all  the  political  luncheon  and  dinner  par- 
ties in  London  are  busy  with  smirking  discussions 
of  ^'  Who  is  to  go?  ■'  The  titled  ladies  are  particu- 
larly busy.  They  are  talking  about  it  as  if  we  poor, 
ignorant,  tax-paying,  blood-paying  common  people 
did  not  exist.  "  L.  G.,"  they  say,  will  of  course 
''  insist  on  going,''  but  there  is  much  talk  of  the 
^^  Old  Man."  People  are  getting  quite  nice  again 
about  "  the  Old  Man's  feelings."  It  would  be  such 
a  pretty  thing  to  send  him.  But  if  ^'  L.  G."  goes 
we  want  him  to  go  with  something  more  than  a 
backing  of  intrigues  and  snatched  authority.  And 
I  do  not  think  the  mass  of  people  have  any  enthusi- 
asm for  the  Old  Man.  It  is  difficult  again  —  by  the 
dinner-party  standards — to  know  how  Lord  Curzon 
can  be  restrained.  But  we  common  people  do  not 
care  if  he  is  restrained  to  the  point  of  extinction. 
Probably  there  will  be  nobody  who  talks  or  under- 
stands Russian  among  the  British  representatives. 


26   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

But,  of  course,  the  British  governing  class  has 
washed  its  hands  of  the  Russians.  They  were  al- 
ways very  difficult,  and  now  they  are  "  impossible, 
my  dear,  perfectly  impossible.-' 

No!  That  sort  of  thing  will  not  do  now.  This 
Peace  Congress  is  too  big  a  job  for  party  politicians 
and  society  and  county  families.  The  bulk  of 
British  opinion  cannot  go  on  being  represented  for 
ever  by  President  Wilson.  We  cannot  always  look 
to  the  Americans  to  express  our  ideas  and  do  our 
work  for  democracy.  The  foolery  of  the  Berlin 
Treaty  must  not  be  repeated.  We  cannot  have  an- 
other popular  Prime  Minister  come  triumphing 
back  to  England  witli  a  gross  of  pink  spectacles  — 
through  which  we  may  survey  the  prospect  of  the 
next  great  war.  The  League  of  Free  Nations  means 
something  very  big  and  solid ;  it  is  not  a  rhetorical 
phrase  to  be  used  to  pacify  a  restless,  distressed, 
and  anxious  public,  and  to  be  sneered  out  of  exist- 
ence when  that  use  is  past.  When  the  popular 
mind  now  demands  a  League  of  Free  Nations  it  de- 
mands a  reality.  The  only  Avay  to  that  reality  is 
through  the  direct  participation  of  the  nation  as  a 
whole  in  the  settlement,  and  that  is  possible  only 
through  the  direct  election  for  this  particular  issue 
of  representative  and  responsible  men. 


Ill 

THE  NECESSARY  POWERS  OP  THE  LEAGUE 

If  this  phrase,  "  the  League  of  Free  Nations,"  is 
to  signify  anything  more  than  a  rhetorical  flourish, 
then  certain  consequences  follow  that  have  to  be 
faced  now.  No  man  can  join  a  partnership  and 
remain  an  absolutely  free  man.  You  cannot  bind 
yourself  to  do  this  and  not  to  do  that  and  to  consult 
and  act  with  your  associates  in  certain  eventuali- 
ties without  a  loss  of  your  sovereign  freedom.  Peo- 
ple in  this  country  and  in  France  do  not  seem  to 
be  sitting  up  manfully  to  these  necessary  proposi- 
tions. 

If  this  League  of  Free  Nations  is  really  to  be  an 
effectual  thing  for  the  preservation  of  the  peace  of 
the  world  it  must  possess  power  and  exercise  power, 
powers  must  be  delegated  to  it.  Otherwise  it  will 
only  help,  with  all  other  half-hearted  good  resolu- 
tions, to  pave  the  road  of  mankind  to  hell.  Nothing 
in  all  the  world  so  strengthens  evil  as  the  half- 
hearted attempts  of  good  to  make  good. 

It  scarcely  needs  repeating  here  —  it  has  been  so 
generally  said  — that  no  League  of  Free  Nations 
can  hope  to  keep  the  peace  unless  every  member  of 

27 


28   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

it  is  indeed  a  free  member,  represented  by  duly 
elected  persons.  Nobody,  of  course,  asks  to  ^'  dic- 
tate the  internal  government "  of  any  country  to 
that  country.  If  Germans,  for  instance,  like  to 
wallow  in  absolutism  after  the  war  they  can  do  so. 
But  if  they  or  any  other  peoples  wish  to  take  part 
in  a  permanent  League  of  Free  Nations  it  is  only 
reasonable  to  insist  that  so  far  as  their  representa- 
tives on  the  council  go  they  must  be  duly  elected 
under  conditions  that  are  by  the  standards  of  the 
general  league  satisfactorily  democratic.  That 
seems  to  be  only  the  common  sense  of  the  matter. 
Every  court  is  a  potential  conspiracy  against 
freedom,  and  the  League  cannot  tolerate  merely 
court  appointments.  If  courts  are  to  exist  any- 
where in  the  new  world  of  the  future,  they  will  be 
wise  to  stand  aloof  from  international  meddling. 
Of  course  if  a  people,  after  due  provision  for 
electoral  representation,  choose  to  elect  dynastic 
candidates,  that  is  an  altogether  different  matter. 

And  now  let  us  consider  what  are  the  powers 
that  must  be  delegated  to  this  proposed  council  of 
a  League  of  Free  Nations,  if  that  is  really  effec- 
tually to  prevent  war  and  to  organize  and  establish 
and  make  i^eace  permanent  in  the  world. 

Firstly,  then,  it  must  be  able  to  adjudicate  upon 
all  international  disputes  whatever.  Its  first  func- 
tion must  clearly  be  that.     Before  a  war  can  break 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS      29 

out  there  must  be  the  possibility  of  a  world  decision 
upon  its  rights  and  wrongs.  The  League,  therefore, 
will  have  as  its  primary  function  to  maintain  a 
Supreme  Court,  whose  decisions  will  be  final,  before 
which  every  sovereign  power  may  appear  as  plain- 
tiff against  any  other  sovereign  power  or  group  of 
powers.  The  plea,  I  take  it,  will  always  be  in  the 
form  that  the  defendant  power  or  powers  is  engaged 
in  proceedings  ^^  calculated  to  lead  to  a  breach  of 
the  peace,''  and  calling  upon  the  League  for  an 
injunction  against  such  proceedings.  I  suppose 
the  proceedings  that  can  be  brought  into  court  in 
this  way  fall  under  such  headings  as  these  that 
follow:  restraint  of  trade  by  injurious  tariffs  or 
suchlike  differentiations,  or  by  interference  with 
through  traffic,  improper  treatment  of  the  subjects 
or  their  property  (here  I  put  a  query)  of  the  plain- 
tiff nation  in  the  defendant  state,  aggressive  mili- 
tary or  naval  preparation,  disorder  spreading  over 
the  frontier,  trespass  (as,  for  instance,  by  airships), 
propaganda  of  disorder,  espionage,  permitting  the 
organization  of  injurious  activities,  such  as  raids 
or  piracy.  Clearly  all  such  actions  must  come 
within  the  purview  of  any  world-supreme  court 
organized  to  prevent  war.  But  in  addition  there 
is  a  more  doubtful  and  delicate  class  of  case,  arising 
out  of  the  discontent  of  patches  of  one  race  or 
religion  in  the  dominions  of  another.     How  far  may 


30   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FEEE  NATIONS 

the  supreme  court  of  the  world  attend  to  grievances 
between  subject  and  soyereign? 

Such  cases  are  highly  probable,  and  no  large, 
vague  propositions  about  the  "  self-determination  " 
of  peoples  can  meet  all  the  cases.  In  Macedonia, 
for  instance,  there  is  a  jumble  of  Albanian,  Serbian, 
Bulgarian,  Greek  and  Roumanian  villages  always 
jostling  one  another  and  maintaining  an  intense 
irritation  between  the  kindred  nations  close  at 
hand.  And  quite  a  large  number  of  areas  and 
cities  in  the  world,  it  has  to  be  remembered,  are 
not  homogeneous  at  all.  Will  the  great  nations  of 
the  world  have  the  self-abnegation  to  permit  a 
scattered  subject  population  to  appeal  against  the 
treatment  of  its  ruling  power  to  the  Supreme 
Court?  This  is  a  much  more  serious  interference 
with  sovereignty  than  intervention  in  an  external 
quarrel.  Could  a  Greek  village  in  Bulgarian  Mace- 
donia plead  in  the  Supreme  Court?  Could  the 
Armenians  in  Constantinople,  or  the  Jews  in 
Roumania,  or  the  Poles  in  West  Prussia,  or  the 
negroes  in  Georgia,  or  the  Indians  in  the  Transvaal 
make  such  an  appeal?  Could  any  Indian  popula- 
tion in  India  appeal?  Personally  I  should  like  to 
see  the  power  of  the  Supreme  Court  extend  as  far 
as  this.  I  do  not  see  how  we  can  possibly  prevent 
a  kindred  nation  pleading  for  the  scattered  people 
of  its  own  race  and  culture,  or  any  nation  pre- 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS   31 

senting  a  case  on  behalf  of  some  otherwise  unrepre- 
sented people  —  the  United  States,  for  example, 
presenting  a  case  on  behalf  of  the  Armenians.  But 
I  doubt  if  many  jjeople  have  made  up  their  minds 
yet  to  see  the  i)Owers  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
League  of  Nations  go  so  far  as  this.  I  doubt  if,  to 
begin  with,  it  wdll  be  possible  to  provide  for  these 
cases.  I  w^ould  like  to  see  it  done,  but  I  doubt  if 
the  majority  of  the  sovereign  peoples  concerned 
w^ill  reconcile  their  national  pride  with  the  idea,  at 
least  so  far  as  their  own  subject  populations  go. 

Here,  you  see,  I  do  no  more  than  ask  a  question. 
It  is  a  difficult  one,  and  it  has  to  be  answered  before 
we  can  clear  the  way  to  the  League  of  Free  Nations. 

But  the  Supreme  Court,  whether  it  is  to  have 
the  wider  or  the  narrower  scope  here  suggested, 
Avould  be  merely  the  central  function  of  the  League 
of  Free  Nations.  Behind  the  decisions  of  the 
Supreme  Court  must  lie  power.  And  here  come 
fresh  difficulties  for  patriotic  digestions.  The 
armies  and  navies  of  the  w^orld  must  be  at  the 
disposal  of  the  League  of  Free  Nations,  and  tliat 
opens  up  a  new  large  area  of  delegated  authority. 
The  first  impulse  of  any  power  disposed  to  chal- 
lenge the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  will  be,  of 
course,  to  arm ;  and  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  how  the 
League  of  Free  Nations  can  exercise  any  practical 
authority  unless  it  has  power  to   restrain   such 


32   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

armament.  The  League  of  Free  Nations  must,  in 
fact,  if  it  is  to  be  a  working  reality,  have  power  to 
define  and  limit  the  military  and  naval  and  aerial 
equipment  of  every  country  in  the  world.  This 
means  something  more  than  a  restriction  of  state 
forces.  It  must  have  power  and  freedom  to  inves- 
tigate the  military  and  naval  and  aerial  establish- 
ments of  all  its  constituent  powers.  It  must  also 
have  effective  control  over  every  armament  indus- 
try. And  armament  industries  are  not  always  easy 
to  define.  Are  aeroplanes,  for  example,  armament? 
Its  powers,  I  suggest,  must  extend  even  to  a  re- 
straint upon  the  belligerent  propaganda  which  is 
the  natural  advertisement  campaign  of  every  arma- 
ment industry.  It  must  have  the  right,  for  exam- 
ple, to  raise  the  question  of  the  proprietorship  of 
newspapers  by  armament  interests.  Disarmament 
is,  in  fact,  a  necessary  factor  of  any  League  of 
Free  Nations,  and  you  cannot  have  disarmament 
unless  you  are  prepared  to  see  the  powers  of  the 
council  of  the  League  extend  thus  far.  The  very 
existence  of  the  League  presupposes  that  it  and  it 
alone  is  to  have  and  to  exercise  military  force. 
Any  other  belligerency  or  preparation  or  incitement 
to  l)elligerency  becomes  rebellion,  and  any  other 
arming  a  threat  of  rebellion,  in  a  world  League  of 
Free  Nations. 

But  here,  again,  has  the  general  mind  yet  thought 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS      33 

out  all  that  is  involved  in  this  proposition?  In  all 
the  great  belligerent  countries  the  armament  in- 
dustries are  now  huge  interests  with  enormous 
powers.  Krupp's  business  alone  is  as  powerful  a 
thing  in  Germany  as  the  Crown.  In  every  coun- 
try a  heavily  subsidized  "  patriotic  "  press  will  tight 
desperately  against  giving  powers  so  extensive  and 
thorough  as  those  here  suggested  to  an  international 
body.  So  long,  of  course,  as  the  League  of  Free 
Nations  remains  a  project  in  the  air,  without  body 
or  parts,  such  a  press  will  sneer  at  it  gently  as 
"  Utopian,''  and  even  patronize  it  kindly.  But  so 
soon  as  the  League  takes  on  the  shape  its  general 
proposition  makes  logically  necessary,  the  arma- 
ment interest  will  take  fright.  Then  it  is  we  shall 
hear  the  drum  patriotic  loud  in  defence  of  the 
human  blood  trade.  Are  we  to  hand  over  these 
most  intimate  affairs  of  ours  to  ^^  a  lot  of  foreign- 
ers "?  Among  these  "  foreigners ''  who  will  be  ap- 
pealed to  to  terrify  the  patriotic  souls  of  the  British 
will  be  the  "  Americans/'  Are  we  men  of  English 
blood  and  tradition  to  see  our  affairs  controlled  by 
such  ^'  foreigners  "  as  Wilson,  Lincoln,  AYebster  and 
Washington?  Perish  the  thought!  When  they 
might  be  controlled  by  Disraelis,  Wettins,  Mount- 
Battens  and  what  not!  And  so  on  and  so  on. 
Krupp's  agents  and  the  agents  of  the  kindred  firms 
in  Great  Britain  and  France  will  also  be  very  busy 


U      THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

with  the  national  pride  of  France.  In  Germany 
they  have  already  created  a  colossal  suspicion  of 
England. 

Here  is  a  giant  in  the  path.  .  .  . 

But  let  us  remember  that  it  is  only  necessary  to 
defeat  the  propaganda  of  this  vile  and  dangerous 
industry  in  four  great  countries.  And  for  the  com- 
mon citizen,  touched  on  the  tenderest  part  of  his 
patriotic  susceptibilities,  there  are  certain  irrefuta- 
ble arguments.  Whether  the  ways  of  the  world  in 
the  years  to  come  are  to  be  the  paths  of  peace  or 
the  paths  of  war  is  not  going  to  alter  this  essential 
fact,  that  the  great  educated  world  communities, 
with  a  social  and  industrial  organization  on  a  war- 
capable  scale,  are  going  to  dominate  human  affairs. 
Whether  they  spend  their  power  in  killing  or  in 
educating  and  creating,  France,  Germany,  however 
much  we  may  resent  it,  the  two  great  English- 
S])eaking  communities,  Italy,  Japan,  China,  and 
presently  perhaps  a  renascent  Russia,  are  jointly 
going  to  control  the  destinies  of  mankind.  Whether 
that  joint  control  comes  through  arms  or  through 
the  law  is  a  secondary  consideration.  To  refuse 
to  bring  our  affairs  into  a  common  council  does  not 
make  us  independent  of  foreigners.  It  makes  us 
more  dependent  upon  them,  as  a  very  little  con- 
sideration will  show. 

I  am  suggesting  here  that  the  League  of  Free 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS      35 

Nations  shall  practically  control  the  army,  navy, 
air  forces,  and  armament  industry  of  every  nation 
in  the  world.  What  is  the  alternative  to  that? 
To  do  as  we  x^lease?  No,  the  alternative  is  that 
any  malignant  country  will  be  free  to  force  upon 
all  the  rest  just  the  maximum  amount  of  armament 
it  chooses  to  adopt.  Since  1871  France,  we  say, 
has  been  free  in  military  matters.  What  has  been 
the  value  of  that  freedom?  The  truth  is,  she  has 
been  the  bond-slave  of  Germany,  bound  to  watch 
Germany  as  a  slave  watches  a  master,  bound  to 
launch  submarine  for  submarine  and  cast  gun  for 
gun,  to  sweep  all  her  youth  into  her  army,  to  subdue 
her  trade,  her  literature,  her  education,  her  whole 
life  to  the  necessity  of  preparations  imposed  upon 
her  by  her  drill  master  over  the  Rhine.  And 
Michael,  too,  has  been  a  slave  to  his  imperial  master 
for  the  self -same  reason,  for  the  reason  that  Ger- 
many and  France  were  both  so  proudly  sovereign 
and  independent.  Both  countries  have  been  slaves 
to  Kruppism  and  Zabernism  —  because  tJicy  were 
sovereign  and  free!  So  it  will  always  be.  So  long 
as  patriotic  cant  can  keep  the  common  man  jealous 
of  international  controls  over  his  belligerent  possi- 
bilities, so  long  will  he  be  the  helpless  slave  of  the 
foreign  threat,  and  "  Peace  "  remain  a  mere  name 
for  the  resting  phase  between  wars. 

But  power  over  the  military   resources  of   the 


36   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

world  is  by  no  means  the  limit  of  the  necessary 
powers  of  an  effective  League  of  Free  Nations. 
There  are  still  more  indigestible  implications  in  the 
idea,  and,  since  they  have  got  to  be  digested  sooner 
or  later  if  civilization  is  not  to  collapse,  there  is  no 
reason  why  we  should  not  begin  to  bite  upon  them 
now.  I  was  much  interested  to  read  the  British 
press  upon  the  alleged  proposal  of  the  German 
Chancellor  that  we  should  give  up  (presumably  to 
Germany)  Gibraltar,  Malta,  Egypt,  and  suchlike 
key  possessions.  It  seemed  to  excite  several  of  our 
politicians  extremely.  I  read  over  the  German 
Chancellor  s  speech  very  carefully,  so  far  as  it  was 
available,  and  it  is  clear  that  he  did  not  propose 
anything  of  the  sort.  Wilfully  or  blindly  our  press 
and  our  demagogues  screamed  over  a  false  issue. 
The  Chancellor  was  defending  the  idea  of  the  Ger- 
mans remaining  in  Belgium  and  Lorraine  because 
of  the  strategic  and  economic  importance  of  those 
regions  to  Germany,  and  he  was  arguing  that  be- 
fore we  English  got  into  such  a  feverish  state  of 
indignation  about  that,  we  should  first  ask  our- 
selves what  we  were  doing  in  Gibraltar,  etc.,  etc. 
That  is  a  different  thing  altogether.  And  it  is  an 
argument  that  is  not  to  be  disposed  of  by  misrepre- 
sentation. The  British  have  to  think  hard  over 
this  quite  legitimate  German  tn  qitoque.  It  is  no 
good  getting  into  a  patriotic  bad  temper  and  ref  us- 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS      37 

ing  to  answer  that  question.  We  British  people 
are  so  persuaded  of  the  purity  and  unselfishness 
with  which  we  discharge  our  imperial  responsibili- 
ties, we  have  been  so  trained  in  imperial  self-satis- 
faction, we  know  so  certainly  that  all  our  subject 
nations  call  us  blessed,  that  it  is  a  little  difficult 
for  us  to  see  just  how  the  fact  that  we  are,  for 
example,  so  deeply  rooted  in  Egypt  looks  to  an  out- 
side intelligence.  Of  course  the  German  imperialist 
idea  is  a  wicked  and  aggressive  idea,  as  Lord  Robert 
Cecil  has  explained;  they  want  to  set  up  all  over 
the  earth  coaling  stations  and  strategic  points,  on 
the  pattern  of  ours.  Well,  they  argue,  we  are  only 
trying  to  do  what  you  British  have  done.  If  we 
are  not  to  do  so  —  because  it  is  aggression  and 
so  on  and  so  on  —  is  not  the  time  ripe  for  you  to 
make  some  concessions  to  the  public  opinion  of  the 
world?  That  is  the  German  argument.  Either, 
they  say,  tolerate  this  idea  of  a  Germany  with  ad- 
vantageous posts  and  possessions  round  and  about 
the  earth,  or  reconsider  your  own  position. 

Well,  at  the  risk  of  rousing  much  patriotic  wrath, 
I  must  admit  that  I  think  we  have  to  reconsider  our 
position.  Our  argument  is  that  in  India,  Egypt, 
Africa  and  elsewhere,  we  stand  for  order  and  civili- 
zation, we  are  the  trustees  of  freedom,  the  agents 
of  knowledge  and  efficiency.  On  the  whole  the 
record  of  British  rule  is  a  pretty  respectable  one; 


38   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

I  am  not  ashamed  of  our  record.     Nevertheless  the 
case  is  altering. 

It  is  quite  justifiable  for  us  British,  no  doubt, 
if  we  do  really  play  the  part  of  honest  trustees,  to 
remain  in  Egypt  and  in  India  under  existing  condi- 
tions; it  is  even  possible  for  us  to  glance  at  the 
heli)lessness  of  Arabia,  Palestine,  and  Mesopotamia, 
as  yet  incapable  of  self  government,  helpless  as 
new-born  infants.  But  our  case,  our  only  justifi- 
able case,  is  that  we  are  trustees  because  there  is  no 
better  trustee  possible.  And  the  creation  of  a  coun- 
cil of  a  League  of  Free  Nations  w^ould  be  like  the 
creation  of  a  Public  Trustee  for  the  w^orld.  The 
creation  of  a  League  of  Free  Nations  must  neces- 
sarily be  the  creation  of  an  authority  that  may 
legitimately  call  existing  emjures  to  give  an  account 
of  their  stewardship.  For  an  unchecked  fragment- 
ary control  of  tropical  and  chaotic  regions,  it  sub- 
stitutes the  possibility  of  a  general  authority.  And 
this  must  necessarily  alter  the  problems  not  only 
of  the  politically  immature  nations  and  the  control 
of  the  tropics,  but  also  of  the  regulation  of  the  sea 
ways,  the  regulation  of  the  coming  air  routes,  and 
the  distribution  of  staple  products  in  the  world.  I 
will  not  go  in  detail  over  the  items  of  this  list,  be- 
cause the  reader  can  fill  in  the  essentials  of  the 
argument  from  what  has  gone  before.  I  want 
simply  to  suggest  how   widely   this  project   of  a 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS   39 

League  of  Freo  Nations  swings  wlien  once  you  have 
let  it  swing  freely  in  your  mind  I  And  if  you  do 
not  let  it  swing  freely  in  your  mind,  it  remains 
nothing  —  a  sentimental  gesture. 

The  plain  truth  is  that  the  League  of  Free 
Nations,  if  it  is  to  be  a  reality,  if  it  is  to  effect  a 
real  pacification  of  the  world,  must  do  no  less  than 
supersede  Empire;  it  must  end  not  only  this  new 
German  imperialism,  which  is  struggling  so  sav- 
agely and  powerfully  to  possess  the  earth,  but  it 
must  also  wind  up  British  imperialism  and  French 
imperialism,  which  do  now  so  largely  and  inag- 
gressively  possess  it.  And,  moreover,  this  idea 
queries  the  adjective  of  Belgian,  Portuguese, 
French,  and  British  Central  Africa  alike,  just  as 
emphatically  as  it  queries  "German."  Still  more 
effectually  does  the  League  forbid  those  creations 
of  the  futurist  imagination,  the  imperialism  of 
Italy  and  Greece,  which  make  such  threatening  ges- 
tures at  the  ^orld  of  our  children.  Are  these 
incompatibilities  understood?  Until  people  have 
faced  the  clear  antagonism  that  exists  between  im- 
perialism and  internationalism,  they  have  not  begun 
to  suspect  the  real  significance  of  tliis  project  of  the 
League  of  Free  Nations.  They  have  not  begun  to 
realize  that  peace  also  has  its  price. 


IV 

THE  LABOUR  VIf:W  OF  MIDDLE  AFRICA 

I  WAS  recently  privileged  to  hear  the  views  of  one 
of  those  titled  and  influential  ladies  —  with  a  gen- 
eral education  at  about  the  fifth  standard  level, 
phis  a  little  French,  German,  Italian,  and  music  — 
who  do  so  much  to  make  our  England  what  it  is 
at  the  present  time,  upon  the  Labour  idea  of  an 
international  control  of  "  tropical "  Africa.  She 
was  loud  and  derisive  about  the  "  ignorance  "  of 
Labour.  "  What  can  they  know  about  foreign 
politics?"  she  said,  with  gestures  to  indicate  her 
conception  of  them. 

I  w^as  moved  to  ask  her  what  she  would  do  about 
x\f  rica.  ''  Leave  it  to  Lord  Robert !  "  she  said,  lean- 
ing forw^ard  impressively.  ^^  Leave  it  to  the  people 
who  know:' 

Unhappily  I  share  the  evident  opinion  of  Labour 
that  we  are  not  blessed  with  any  profoundly  w4se 
class  of  people  who  have  definite  knowledge  and 
clear  intentions  about  Africa,  that  these  "  people 
who  know  ■■  are  mostly  a  pretentious  bluff,  and  so, 
in  spite  of  a  very  earnest  desire  to  take  refuge  in 

40 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS      41 

my  "  ignorance "  from  the  burthen  of  thinking 
about  African  problems,  I  find  myself  obliged  like 
most  other  people  to  do  so.  In  the  interests  of  our 
country,  our  children,  and  the  world,  we  common 
persons  have  to  have  opinions  about  these  matters. 
A  muddle-up  in  Africa  this  year  may  kill  your  son 
and  mine  in  the  course  of  the  next  decade.  I  know 
this  is  not  a  claim  to  be  interested  in  things  Afri- 
can, such  as  the  promoter  of  a  tropical  railway  or 
an  oil  speculator  has;  still  it  is  a  claim.  And  for 
the  life  of  me  I  cannot  see  what  is  wrong  about 
the  Labour  proposals,  or  what  alternative  exists 
that  can  give  even  a  hope  of  peace  in  and  about 
Africa. 

The  gist  of  the  Labour  proposal  is  an  inter- 
national control  of  Africa  between  the  Zambesi  and 
the  Sahara.  This  has  been  received  with  loud  pro- 
tests by  men  whose  work  one  is  obliged  to  respect, 
by  Sir  Harry  Johnston,  for  example,  and  Sir  Alfred 
Sharpe,  and  with  something  approaching  a  shriek 
of  hostility  by  Mr.  Cunninghame  Graham.  But  I 
think  these  gentlemen  have  not  perhaps  given  the 
Labour  proposal  quite  as  much  attention  as  they 
have  spent  upon  the  details  of  African  conditions. 
I  think  they  have  jumped  to  conclusions  at  the  mere 
sound  of  the  word  "  international.''  There  have 
been  some  gross  failures  in  the  past  to  set  up  inter- 
national administrations  in  Africa  and  the  Near 


42   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FEEE  NATIONS 

East.  And  these  gentlemen  think  at  once  of  some 
new  Congo  administration  and  of  nondescript 
police  forces  commanded  by  cosmopolitan  adven- 
turers. (See  Joseph  Conrad's  ^'Outpost  of  Civili- 
zation.") They  think  of  internationalism  with 
greedy  Great  Powers  in  the  background  outside 
the  internationalized  area,  intriguing  to  create 
disorder  and  mischief  with  ideas  of  an  ultimate  an- 
nexation. But  I  doubt  if  such  nightmares  do  any 
sort  of  justice  to  the  Labour  intention. 

And  the  essential  thing  I  would  like  to  point 
out  to  these  authorities  upon  African  questions 
is  that  not  one  of  them  even  hints  at  any  other 
formula  which  covers  the  broad  essentials  of  the 
African  riddle. 

AVhat  are  those  broad  essentials?  What  are  the 
ends  that  must  be  achieved  if  Africa  is  not  to  con- 
tinue a  festering  sore  in  the  body  of  mankind? 

The  first  most  obvious  danger  of  Africa  is  the 
militarization  of  the  black.  General  Smuts  has 
pointed  this  out  plainly.  The  negro  makes  a  good' 
soldier ;  he  is  hardy,  he  stands  the  sea,  and  he  stands 
cold.  (There  was  a  negro  in  the  little  party  which 
reached  the  North  Pole.)  It  is  absolutely  essential 
to  the  peace  of  the  world  that  there  should  be  no 
arming  of  the  negroes  beyond  the  minimum  neces- 
sary for  the  policing  of  Africa.  P>ut  how  is  this  to 
be  watched  and  prevented  if  there  is  no  overriding 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS      43 

body  representing  civilization  to  say  ''  Stop  '■  to  the 
beginnings  of  any  such  militarization?  I  do  not 
see  how  Sir  Harry  Johnston,  Sir  Alfred  Sharpe,  and 
the  other  authorities  can  object  to  at  least  an  inter- 
national African  ''  Disarnuinient  Commission  ''  to 
watch,  warn,  and  protest.  At  least  they  must  con- 
cede that. 

But  in  practice  this  involves  something  else.  A 
practical  consequence  of  this  disarmament  idea 
must  be  an  effective  control  of  the  importation  of 
arms  into  the  "  tutelage ''  areas  of  Africa.  That 
rat  at  the  dykes  of  civilization,  that  ultimate  ex- 
pression of  political  scoundrelism,  the  Gun-Runner, 
has  to  be  kept  under  and  stamped  out  in  Africa  as 
everywhere.  A  Disarmament  Commission  that  has 
no  forces  available  to  prevent  the  arms  trade  will 
be  just  another  Hague  Convention,  just  another 
vague,  well-intentioned,  futile  gesture. 

And  closely  connected  with  this  function  of  con- 
trolling the  arms  trade  is  another  great  necessity 
of  Africa  under  '^  tutelage,- '  and  that  is  the  neces- 
sity of  a  common  collective  agreement  not  to  de- 
moralize the  native  population.  That  demoraliza- 
tion, physical  and  moral,  has  already  gone  far. 
The  whole  negro  population  of  Africa  is  now  rotten 
with  diseases  introduced  by  Arabs  and  Europeans 
during  the  last  century,  and  such  African  states- 
men as  Sir  Harry  Johnston  are  eloquent  upon  the 


44   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

necessity  of  saving  the  blacks  —  and  the  baser 
whites  —  from  the  effects  of  trade  gin  and  similar 
alluring  articles  of  commerce.  Moreover,  from 
Africa  there  is  always  something  new  in  the  way 
of  tropical  diseases,  and  presently  Africa,  if  we  let 
it  continue  to  fester  as  it  festers  now,  may  produce 
an  epidemic  that  will  stand  exportation  to  a  tem- 
perate climate.  A  bacterium  that  may  kill  you  or 
me  in  some  novel  and  disgusting  way  may  even  now 
be  developing  in  some  Congo  muck-heap.  So  here 
is  the  need  for  another  Commission  to  look  after 
the  Health  of  Africa.  That,  too,  should  be  of  au- 
thority over  all  the  area  of  "  tutelage  ''  Africa.  It 
is  no  good  stamping  out  infectious  disease  in  Nyasa- 
land  while  it  is  being  bred  in  Portuguese  East 
Africa.  And  if  there  is  a  Disarmament  Commis- 
sion already  controlling  the  importation  of  arms, 
why  should  not  that  body  also  control  at  the  same 
time  the  importation  of  trade  gin  and  similar  deli- 
cacies, and  direct  quarantine  and  such-like  health 
regulations? 

But  there  is  another  question  in  Africa  upon 
which  our  "  ignorant "  Labour  class  is  far  better 
informed  than  our  dear  old  eighteenth-century 
upper  class  which  still  squats  so  firmly  in  our  For- 
eign and  Colonial  Offices,  and  that  is  the  question 
of  forced  labour.     We  cannot  tolerate  any  possi- 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS   45 

bilities  of  the  enslavement  of  black  Africa.  Long 
ago  the  United  States  found  out  the  impossibility 
of  having  slave  labour  working  in  the  same  system 
with  white.  To  cure  that  anomaly  cost  the  United 
States  a  long  and  bloody  war.  The  slave-owner, 
the  exploiter  of  the  black,  becomes  a  threat  and  a 
nuisance  to  any  white  democracy.  He  brings  back 
his  loot  to  corrupt  Press  and  life  at  home.  What 
happened  in  America  in  the  midst  of  the  last  cen- 
tury between  Federals  and  Confederates  must  not 
happen  again  on  a  larger  scale  between  white 
Europe  and  middle  Africa.  Slavery  in  Africa,  open 
or  disguised,  whether  enforced  by  the  lash  or 
brought  about  by  iniquitous  land-stealing,  strikes 
at  the  home  and  freedom  of  every  European  worker 
—  and  Labour  knows  this. 

But  how  are  we  to  prevent  the  enslavement  and 
economic  exploitation  of  the  blacks  if  we  have  no 
general  Avatcher  of  African  conditions?  We  want 
a  common  law  for  Africa,  a  general  Declaration  of 
Kights,  of  certain  elementary  rights,  and  we  want 
a  common  authority  to  which  the  black  man  and 
the  native  tribe  may  appeal  for  justice.  What  is 
the  good  of  trying  to  elevate  the  population  of 
Uganda  and  to  give  it  a  free  and  hopeful  life  if 
some  other  population  close  at  hand  is  competing 
against  the  Baganda  worker  under  lash  and  tax? 


46   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

So  here  is  a  third  aspect  of  our  international  Com- 
mission, as  a  native  protectorate  and  court  of 
appeal ! 

There  is  still  a  fourth  aspect  of  the  African  ques- 
tion in  which  every  mother's  son  in  Europe  is 
closely  interested,  and  that  is  the  trade  question. 
Africa  is  the  great  source  of  many  of  the  most 
necessary  raw  materials  upon  which  our  modern 
comforts  and  conveniences  depend;  more  par- 
ticularly is  it  the  source  of  cheap  fat  in  the  form 
of  palm  oil.  One  of  the  most  powerful  levers  in 
the  hands  of  the  Allied  democracies  at  the  present 
time  in  their  struggle  against  the  imperial  brigands 
of  Potsdam  is  the  complete  control  we  have  now 
obtained  over  these  essential  supplies.  We  can,  if 
we  choose,  cut  off  Germany  altogether  from  these 
vital  economic  necessities,  if  she  does  not  consent 
to  abandon  militant  imperialism  for  some  more  civ- 
ilized form  of  government.  We  hope  that  this  war 
will  end  in  that  renunciation,  and  that  Germany 
will  re-enter  the  community  of  nations.  But 
whether  that  is  so  or  not,  whether  Germany  is  or 
is  not  to  be  one  of  the  interested  parties  in  the 
African  solution,  the  fact  remains  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  contemplate  a  continuing  struggle  for  the 
African  raw  material  supply  between  the  interested 
Powers.  Sooner  or  later  that  means  a  renewal  of 
war.     International  trade  rivalry  is,  indeed,  only 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FEEE  NATIONS      47 

war  —  smouldering.  We  need,  and  Labour  de- 
mands, a  fair,  frank  treatment  of  African  trade, 
and  that  can  only  be  done  by  some  overriding 
regulative  power,  a  Commission  which,  so  far  as 
I  can  see,  might  also  be  the  same  Commission  as 
that  we  have  already  hypothesized  as  being  neces- 
sary to  control  the  Customs  in  order  to  prevent 
gun-running  and  the  gin  trade.  That  Commission 
might  very  conveniently  have  a  voice  in  the  admin- 
istration of  the  great  waterways  of  Africa  (which 
often  run  through  the  possessions  of  several  Pow- 
ers) and  in  the  regulation  of  the  big  railway  lines 
and  air  routes  that  will  speedily  follow  the  con- 
clusion of  peace. 

Now  this  I  take  it  is  the  gist  of  the  Labour  pro- 
posal. This  —  and  no  more  than  this  —  is  what  is 
intended  by  the  "  international  control  of  tropical 
Africa.-'  I  do  not  read  that  phrase  as  abrogating 
existing  sovereignties  in  Afriea.  What  is  contem- 
plated is  a  delegation  of  authority.  Every  one 
should  know,  though  unhappily  the  badness  of  our 
history  teaching  makes  it  doubtful  if  every  one  does 
know,  that  the  Federal  Government  of  the  Ignited 
States  of  America  did  not  begin  as  a  sovereign  Gov- 
ernment, and  has  now  only  a  very  questionable 
sovereignty.  Each  State  was  sovereign,  and  each 
State  delegated  certain  powers  to  Washington. 
That   was   the   initial    idea    of   the    union.     Only 


48   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

later  did  the  idea  of  a  people  of  the  States  as  a 
whole  emerge.  In  the  same  way  I  understand  the 
Labour  proposal  as  meaning  that  we  should  dele- 
gate to  an  African  Commission  the  middle  African 
Customs,  the  regulation  of  inter-State  trade,  inter- 
State  railways  and  waterAvays,  quarantine  and 
health  generally,  and  the  establishment  of  a  Su- 
preme Court  for  middle  African  affairs.  One  or 
two  minor  matters,  such  as  the  preserTation  of 
rare  animals,  might  very  well  fall  under  the  same 
authority. 

Upon  that  Commission  the  interested  nations, 
that  is  to  say  —  putting  them  in  alphabetical  order 
—  the  Africander,  the  Briton,  the  Belgian,  the 
Egyptian,  the  Frenchman,  the  Italian,  the  Indian, 
the  Portuguese  —  might  all  be  represented  in  pro- 
portion to  their  interest.  Whether  the  German 
would  come  in  is  really  a  question  for  the  Gennan 
to  consider;  he  can  come  in  as  a  good  European, 
he  cannot  come  in  as  an  imperialist  brigand. 
Whether,  too,  any  other  nations  can  claim  to  have 
an  interest  in  African  affairs,  whether  the  Commis- 
sion would  not  be  better  appointed  by  a  League 
of  Free  Nations  than  directly  by  the  interested 
Governments,  and  a  number  of  other  such  ques- 
tions, need  not  be  considered  here.  Here  we  are 
discussing  only  the  main  idea  of  the  Labour  pro- 
posal. 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS      49 

Now  beneath  the  supervision  and  restraint  of 
such  a  delegated  Commission  I  do  not  see  why 
the  existing  administrations  of  tutelage  Africa 
should  not  continue.  I  do  not  believe  that  the 
Labour  proposal  contemplates  any  humiliating 
cession  of  European  sovereignty.  Under  that  in- 
ternational Commission  the  French  flag  may  still 
w^ave  in  Senegal  and  the  British  over  the  pro- 
tected State  of  LTganda.  Given  a  new  spirit  in 
Germany  I  do  not  see  w^hy  the  German  flag  should 
not  presently  be  restored  in  German  East  Africa. 
But  over  all,  standing  for  righteousness,  patience, 
fair  play  for  the  black,  and  the  common  welfare 
of  mankind  w^ould  wave  a  new  flag,  the  Sun  of 
Africa,  representing  the  Central  African  Commis- 
sion of  the  League  of  Free  Nations. 

That  is  my  vision  of  the  Labour  project.  It  is 
something  very  different,  I  know^,  from  the  night- 
mare of  an  international  police  of  cosmopolitan 
scoundrels  in  nondescript  uniforms,  hastening  to 
loot  and  ravish  his  dear  Uganda  and  his  beloved 
Nigeria,  which  distresses  the  crumpled  pillow  of 
Sir  Harry  Johnston.  But  if  it  is  not  the  solution, 
then  it  is  up  to  him  and  his  fellow  authorities  to 
tell  us  w^hat  is  the  solution  of  the  African  riddle. 


GETTING  THE  LEAGUE  IDEA  CLEAR  IN 
RELATION  TO  IMPERIALISM 

§  1 

It  is  idle  to  pretend  that  even  at  the  present  time 
the  idea  of  the  League  of  Free  Nations  has  secure 
possession  of  the  British  mind.  There  is  quite 
naturally  a  sustained  opposition  to  it  in  all  the 
fastnesses  of  aggressive  imperialism.  Such  papers 
as  the  Times  and  the  Morning  Post  remain  hostile 
and  obstructive  to  the  expression  of  international 
ideas.  Most  of  our  elder  statesmen  seem  to  have 
learnt  nothing  and  forgotten  nothing  during  the 
years  of  wildest  change  the  world  has  ever  known. 
But  in  the  general  mind  of  the  British  peoples  the 
movement  of  opinion  from  a  narrow  imperialism 
towards  internationalism  has  been  wide  and  swift. 
And  it  continues  steadily.  One  can  trace  week 
by  week  and  almost  day  by  day  the  Americaniza- 
tion of  the  British  conception  of  the  Allied  War 
Aims.  It  may  be  interesting  to  reproduce  here 
three  communications  upon  this  question  made  at 
different  times  by  the  present  writer  to  the  press. 

50 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS      51 

The  circumstances  of  their  publication  are  signifi- 
cant. The  first  is  in  substance  identical  with  a 
letter  which  was  sent  to  the  Times  late  in  May, 
1917,  and  rejected  as  being  altogether  too  revolu- 
tionary. For  nowadays  the  correspondence  in  the 
Times  has  ceased  to  be  an  impartial  expression  of 
public  opinion.  The  correspondence  of  the  Times 
is  now  apparently  selected  and  edited  in  accordance 
with  the  views  upon  public  policy  held  by  the  acting 
editor  for  the  day.  More  and  more  has  that  paper 
become  the  organ  of  a  sort  of  Oxford  Imperialism, 
three  or  four  years  behind  the  times  and  very  ripe 
and  "  expert."  The  letter  is  here  given  as  it  was 
finally  printed  in  the  issue  of  the  Daih;  Chronicle 
for  June  4th,  1017,  under  the  heading,  "  Wanted  a 
Statement  of  Imperial  Policy.'' 

Sir, —  The  time  seems  to  have  come  for  much 
clearer  statements  of  outlook  and  intention  from 
this  country  than  it  has  hitherto  been  possible  to 
make.  The  entry  of  America  into  the  war  and  the 
banishment  of  autocracy  and  aggressive  diplomacy 
from  Russia  have  enormously  cleared  the  air,  and 
the  recent  great  speech  of  General  Smuts  at  the 
Savoy  Hotel  is  probably  only  the  first  of  a  series 
of  experiments  in  statement.  It  is  desirable  alike 
to  clear  our  own  heads,  to  unify  our  efforts,  and  to 
give  the  nations  of  the  world  some  assurance  and 


52   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

standard  for  our  national  conduct  in  the  future, 
that  we  should  now  define  the  Idea  of  our  Empire 
and  its  relation  to  the  world  outlook  much  more 
clearly  than  has  ever  hitherto  been  done.  Never 
before  in  the  history  of  mankind  has  opinion 
counted  for  so  much  and  persons  and  organizations 
for  so  little  as  in  this  war.  Never  before  has  the 
need  for  clear  ideas,  widely  understood  and  con- 
sistently sustained,  been  so  commandingly  vital. 

What  do  we  mean  by  our  Empire,  and  what 
is  its  relation  to  that  universal  desire  of  mankind, 
the  permanent  rule  of  peace  and  justice  in  the 
world?  The  w^hole  w^orld  will  be  the  better  for  a 
very  plain  answer  to  that  question. 

Is  it  not  time  for  us  British  not  merely  to  admit 
to  ourselves,  but  to  assure  the  world  that  our 
Empire  as  it  exists  to-day  is  a  provisional  thing, 
that  in  scarcely  any  part  of  tlie  w^orld  do  we  regard 
it  as  more  than  an  emergency  arrangement,  as  a 
necessary  association  that  must  give  place  ulti- 
mately to  the  higher  synthesis  of  a  world  league, 
that  here  we  hold  as  trustees  and  there  on  account 
of  strategic  considerations  that  may  presently 
disappear,  and  that  though  we  will  not  contemplate 
the  replacement  of  our  Hag  anywhere  by  the  flag 
of  any  other  competing  nation,  though  we  do  hope 
to  hold  together  with  our  kin  and  with  those  who 
increasingly  share  our  tradition  and  our  language, 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS      53 

nevertheless  we  are  prepared  to  welcome  great 
renunciations  of  our  present  ascendency  and 
privileges  in  the  interests  of  mankind  as  a  whole. 
We  need  to  make  the  world  understand  that  we 
do  not  put  our  nation  nor  our  Empire  before  the 
commonwealth  of  man.  Unless  presently  we  are 
to  follow  Germany  along  the  tragic  path  her 
national  vanity  and  her  world  ambitions  have 
made  for  her,  that  is  what  we  have  to  make  clear 
now.  It  is  not  only  our  duty  to  mankind,  it  is 
also  the  sane  course  for  our  own  preservation. 

Is  it  not  the  plain  lesson  of  this  stupendous 
and  disastrous  war  that  there  is  no  way  to  secure 
civilization  from  destruction  except  by  an  impartial 
control  and  protection  in  the  interests  of  the 
whole  human  race,  a  control  representing  the  best 
intelligence  of  mankind,  of  these  main  causes  of 
war. 

(1)  The  politically  undeveloped  tropics; 

(2)  Shipping  and  international  trade;  and 

(3)  Small  nationalities  and  all  regions  in  a 
state  of  political  impotence  or  confusion? 

It  is  our  case  against  the  Germans  that  in  all 
these  three  cases  they  have  subordinated  every 
consideration  of  justice  and  the  general  human 
welfare  to  a  monstrous  national  egotism.  That 
argument  has  a  double  edge.  At  present  there  is  a 
vigorous  campaign  in  America,  Russia,  the  neutral 


54   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

countries  generally,  to  represent  British  patriotism 
as  equally  egotistic,  and  our  purpose  in  this  war 
as  a  mere  parallel  to  the  German  purpose.  In  the 
same  manner,  though  perhaps  with  less  persistency, 
France  and  Italy  are  also  caricatured.  We  are 
supposed  to  be  grabbing  at  Mesopotamia  and  Pales- 
tine, France  at  Syria;  Italy  is  represented  as  pur- 
suing a  Machiavellian  policy  towards  the  unfortu- 
nate Greek  rei^ublicans,  with  her  eyes  on  the  Greek 
islands  and  Greece  in  Asia.  Is  it  not  time  that 
these  base  imputations  were  repudiated  clearly  and 
conclusively  by  our  Alliance?  And  is  it  not  time 
that  we  began  to  discuss  in  much  more  frank  and 
definite  terms  than  has  hitherto  been  done,  the 
nature  of  the  international  arrangement  that  will 
be  needed  to  secure  the  safety  of  such  liberated 
populations  as  those  of  Palestine,  of  the  Arab 
regions  of  the  old  Turkish  empire,  of  Armenia,  of 
reunited  Poland,  and  the  like? 

I  do  not  mean  here  mere  diplomatic  discussions 
and  ''  understandings."  I  mean  such  full  and  plain 
statements  as  will  be  spread  through  the  whole 
world  and  grasped  and  assimilated  by  ordinary 
people  everywhere,  statements  by  which  we,  as  a 
people,  will  be  prepared  to  stand  or  fall. 

Almost  as  urgent  is  the  need  for  some  definite 
statement  about  Africa.  General  Smuts  has 
warned  not  only  the  Empire,  but  the  whole  world 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS      55 

of  the  gigantic  threat  to  civilization  that  lies  in 
the  present  division  of  Africa  between  various 
keenly  competitive  European  Powers,  any  one  of 
which  will  be  free  to  misuse  the  great  natural  re- 
sources at  its  disposal  and  to  arm  millions  of  black 
soldiers  for  aggression.  A  mere  elimination  of 
Germany  from  Africa  will  not  solve  that  difficulty. 
What  we  have  to  eliminate  is  not  this  nation  or 
that,  but  the  system  of  national  shoving  and  elbow- 
ing, the  treatment  of  Africa  as  the  board  for  a  game 
of  beggar-my-neighbour-and-damn-the-niggers,  in 
which  a  few  syndicates,  masquerading  as  national 
interests,  snatch  a  profit  to  the  infinite  loss  of  all 
mankind.  We  want  a  lowering  of  barriers  and  a 
unification  of  interests,  we  want  an  international 
control  of  these  disputed  regions,  to  override  nation- 
alist exploitation.  The  whole  world  wants  it.  It 
is  a  chastened  and  reasonable  world  we  live  in  to- 
day, and  the  time  for  white  reason  and  the  wide 
treatment  of  these  problems  is  now. 

Finally,  the  time  is  drawing  near  when  the 
Egyptian  and  the  nations  of  India  will  ask  us, 
"  Are  things  going  on  for  ever  here  as  they  go  on 
now,  or  are  we  to  look  for  the  time  when  we,  too, 
like  the  Africander,  the  Canadian  and  the  Austral- 
ian, will  be  your  confessed  and  equal  partners?  " 
Would  it  not  be  wise  to  answer  that  question  in 
the  affirmative  before  the  voice  in  which  it  is  asked 


56   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

j?rows  thick  with  anger?  In  Egypt,  for  example, 
we  are  either  robbers  very  like  —  except  for  a  cer- 
tain difference  in  touch  —  the  Germans  in  Belgium, 
or  we  are  honourable  trustees.  It  is  our  claim  and 
pride  to  be  honourable  trustees.  Nothing  so  be- 
comes a  trustee  as  a  cheerful  openness  of  disposi- 
tion. Great  Britain  has  to  table  her  world  policy. 
It  is  a  thing  overdue.  No  doubt  we  have  already 
a  literature  of  lil)eral  imperialism  and  a  consider- 
able accumulation  of  declarations  by  this  statesman 
or  that.  But  what  is  needed  is  a  formulation  much 
more  representative,  official  and  permanent  than 
that,  something  that  can  be  put  beside  President 
Wilson's  clear  rendering  of  the  American  idea. 
We  want  all  our  peoples  to  understand,  and  we 
want  all  mankind  to  understand  that  our  Empire 
is  not  a  net  about  the  world  in  which  the  progress 
of  mankind  is  entangled,  but  a  self-conscious 
political  system  working  side  by  side  with  the 
other  democracies  of  the  earth,  preparing  the  way 
for,  and  prepared  at  last  to  sacrifice  and  Emerge 
itself  in,  the  world  confederation  of  free  and  equal 
peoples. 

§  2 
This  letter  was   presently   followed   up   by  an 
article  in  the  Daily  News,  entitled  ''  A  Reasonable 
Man's  Peace."     This  article  provoked  a  consider- 


THE  LEAGUE  OP  FREE  NATIONS      57 

able  controversy  in  the  imperialist  press,  and  it  was 
reprinted  as  a  pamphlet  by  a  Free  Trade  organiza- 
tion, which  distributed  over  200,000  copies.  It  is 
particularly  interesting  to  note,  in  view  of  what 
follows  it,  that  it  was  attacked  with  great  virulence 
in  the  Evening  Netvs,  the  little  fierce  mud-throwin^i: 
brother  of  the  Daily  Mail. 

The  international  situation  at  the  present  time 
is  beyond  question  the  most  wonderful  that  the 
world  has  ever  seen.  There  is  not  a  country  in 
the  world  in  which  the  great  majority  of  sensible 
people  are  not  passionately  desirous  of  peace,  of 
an  enduring  peace,  and  —  the  war  goes  on.  The 
conditions  of  peace  can  now  be  stated  in  general 
terms  that  are  as  acceptable  to  a  reasonable  man 
in  Berlin  as  they  are  to  a  reasonable  man  in  Paris 
or  London  or  Petrograd  or  Constantinople.  There 
are  to  be  no  conquests,  no  domination  of  recal- 
citrant populations,  no  bitter  insistence  upon 
vindictive  penalties,  and  there  must  be  something 
in  the  nature  of  a  world-wide  League  of  Nations 
to  keep  the  peace  securely  in  future,  to  "  make  the 
world  safe  for  democracy,"  and  maintain  inter- 
national justice.  To  that  the  general  mind  of  the 
world  has  come  to-day. 

Why,  then,  does  the  waste  and  killing  go  on? 
Why  is  not  the  Peace  Conference  sitting  now? 


58   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

Manifestly  because  a  small  minority  of  people 
in  positions  of  peculiar  advantage,  in  positions  of 
trust  and  authority,  and  particularly  the  German 
reactionaries,  prevent  or  delay  its  assembling. 

The  answer  which  seems  to  suflQce  in  all  the 
Allied  countries  is  that  the  German  Im]^erial 
Government  —  that  the  German  Imperial  Govern- 
ment alone  —  stands  in  the  Avay,  that  its  tradition 
is  incurably  a  tradition  of  conquest  and  aggression, 
that  until  German  militarism  is  overthrown,  etc. 
Few  people  in  the  Allied  countries  will  dispute  that 
that  is  broadly  true.  But  is  it  the  Avhole  and 
complete  truth?  Is  there  nothing  more  to  be  done 
on  our  side?  Let  us  put  a  question  that  goes  to 
the  very  heart  of  the  problem.  Why  does  the  great 
mass  of  the  German  people  still  cling  to  its  incur- 
ably belligerent  Government? 

The  answer  to  that  question  is  not  overwhelm- 
ingly difficult.  The  German  peo])le  sticks  to  its 
militarist  imperialism  as  Mazeppa  stuck  to  his 
horse;  because  it  is  bound  to  it,  and  the  wolves 
pursue.  The  attentive  student  of  the  home  and 
foreign  propaganda  literature  of  the  German  Gov- 
ernment will  realize  that  the  case  made  by  German 
imperialism,  the  main  argument  by  which  it  sticks 
to  power,  is  this,  that  the  Allied  Governments  are 
also  imperialist,  that  they  also  aim  at  conquest  and 
aggression,  that  for  Germany  the  choice  is  world 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS   59 

empire  or  downfall  and  utter  ruin.  This  is  the 
argument  that  holds  the  German  i>eople  stiffly 
united.  For  most  men  in  most  countries  it  would 
be  a  convincing  argument,  strong  enough  to  over- 
ride considerations  of  right  and  wrong.  I  find  that 
I  myself  am  of  this  way  of  thinking,  that  whether 
England  has  done  right  or  wrong  in  the  past  —  and 
I  have  sometimes  criticized  my  country  very  bitterly 
—  I  will  not  endure  the  prospect  of  seeing  her  at 
the  foot  of  some  victorious  foreign  nation.  Neither 
will  any  German  who  matters.  Very  few  people 
would  respect  a  German  who  did. 

But  the  case  for  the  Allies  is  that  this  great 
argument  by  which,  and  by  which  alone,  the  Ger- 
man Imperial  Government  keeps  its  grip  upon  the 
German  people  at  the  present  time,  and  keeps  them 
facing  their  enemies,  is  untrue.  The  Allies  declare 
that  they  do  not  want  to  destroy  the  German  people, 
they  do  not  want  to  cripple  the  German  people; 
they  want  merely  to  see  certain  gaping  wounds 
inflicted  by  Germany  repaired,  and  beyond  that 
reasonable  requirement  they  want  nothing  but  to 
be  assured,  completely  assured,  absolutely  assured, 
against  any  further  aggressions  on  the  part  of 
Germany. 

Is  that  true?  Our  leaders  say  so,  and  we  believe 
them.  We  would  not  support  them  if  we  did  not. 
And  if  it  is  true,  have  the  statesmen  of  the  Allies 


60   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

made  it  as  transparently  and  convincingly  clear  to 
the  German  people  as  possible?  That  is  one  of  the 
supreme  questions  of  the  present  time.  We  cannot 
too  earnestly  examine  it.  Because  in  the  answer 
to  it  lies  the  reason  why  so  many  men  were  killed 
yesterday  on  the  eastern  and  western  front,  so  many 
ships  sunk,  so  much  property  destroyed,  so  much 
human  energy  wasted  for  ever  upon  mere  destruc- 
tion, and  why  to  morrow  and  the  next  day  and 
the  day  after  —  through  many  months  yet,  perhaps 
—  the  same  killing  and  destroying  must  still  go  on. 
In  many  respects  this  war  has  been  an  amazing 
display  of  human  inadaptability.  The  military 
history  of  the  war  has  still  to  be  written,  the  grim 
story  of  machinery  misunderstood,  improvements 
resisted,  antiquated  methods  persisted  in;  but  the 
broad  facts  are  already  before  the  public  mind. 
After  three  years  of  war  the  air  offensive,  the  only 
possible  decisive  blow,  is  still  merely  talked  of. 
Not  once  nor  twice  only  have  the  Western  Allies 
had  victory  within  their  grasp  —  and  failed  to  grip 
it.  The  British  cavalry  generals  wasted  the  great 
invention  of  the  tanks  as  a  careless  child  breaks  a 
toy.  At  least  equally  remarkable  is  the  dragging 
inadaptability  of  European  statecraft.  Every- 
where the  failure  of  ministers  and  statesmen  to  rise 
to  the  urgent  definite  necessities  of  the  present  time 
is  glaringly  conspicuous.     They  seem  to  be  incapa- 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS       61 

ble  even  of  thinking  how  the  war  may  be  brought 
to  an  end.  They  seem  incapable  of  that  plain 
speaking  to  the  world  audience  which  alone  can 
bring  about  a  peace.  They  keep  on  with  the  tricks 
and  feints  of  a  departed  age.  Both  on  the  side  of 
the  Allies  and  on  the  side  of  the  Germans  the  decla- 
rations of  public  policy  remain  childishly  vague 
and  disingenuous,  childishly  ^'  diplomatic."  They 
chaffer  like  happy  imbeciles  while  civilization 
bleeds  to  death.  It  was  perhaps  to  be  expected. 
Few,  if  any,  men  of  over  five-and-forty  completely 
readjust  themselves  to  changed  conditions,  however 
novel  and  challenging  the  changes  may  be,  and 
nearly  all  the  leading  figures  in  these  affairs  are 
elderly  men  trained  in  a  tradition  of  diplomatic 
ineffectiveness,  and  now  overworked  and  over- 
strained to  a  pitch  of  complete  inelasticity.  They 
go  on  as  if  it  were  still  1913.  Could  anything  be 
more  palpably  shifty  and  unsatisfactory,  more  sen- 
ile, more  feebly  artful,  than  the  recent  utterances 
of  the  German  Chancellor?  And,  on  our  own 
side  — 

Let  us  examine  the  three  leading  points  about 
this  peace  business  in  which  this  jaded  statecraft 
is  most  apparent. 

Let  the  reader  ask  himself  the  following  ques- 
tions :  — 

Does  he  know  what  the  Allies  mean  to  do  with 


62   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

the  problem  of  Central  Africa?  It  is  the  clear 
common  sense  of  the  African  situation  that  while 
these  precious  regions  of  raw  material  remain 
divided  up  between  a  number  of  competitive 
European  imperialisms,  each  resolutely  set  upon 
the  exploitation  of  its  "  possessions ''  to  its  own 
advantage  and  the  disadvantage  of  the  others,  there 
can  be  no  permanent  peace  in  the  world.  There 
can  be  permanent  peace  in  the  world  only  when 
tropical  and  sub-tropical  Africa  constitute  a  field 
free  to  the  commercial  enterprise  of  every  one  irre- 
spective of  nationality,  when  this  is  no  longer  an 
area  of  competition  between  nations.  This  is  possi- 
ble only  under  some  supreme  international  control. 
It  requires  no  special  knowledge  nor  wisdom  to  see 
that.  A  schoolboy  can  see  it.  Any  one  but  a 
statesman  absolutely  flaccid  with  overstrain  can  see 
that.  However  difficult  it  may  prove  to  work  out 
in  detail,  such  an  international  control  must  there- 
fore be  worked  out.  The  manifest  solution  of  the 
problem  of  the  German  colonies  in  Africa  is  neither 
to  return  them  to  her  nor  deprive  her  of  them,  but 
to  give  her  a  share  in  the  pooled  general  control  of 
mid-Africa.  In  that  way  she  can  be  deprived  of  all 
power  for  political  mischief  in  Africa  without  hu- 
miliation or  economic  injury.  In  that  way,  too,  we 
can  head  off  —  and  in  no  other  way  can  we  head  off 
—  the  power  for  evil,  the  power  of  developing  quar- 


THE  LEAGUE  OP  FREE  NATIONS      63 

rels  inherent  in  ^^  imperialisms  "  other  than  Ger- 
man. 

But  has  the  reader  any  assurance  that  this  sane 
solution  of  the  African  problem  has  the  support 
of  the  Allied  Governments?  At  best  he  has  only 
a  vague  persuasion.  And  consider  how  the  matter 
looks  ^^  over  there."  The  German  Government 
assures  the  German  people  that  the  Allies  intend 
to  cut  off  Germany  from  the  African  supply  of  raw 
material.  That  would  mean  the  practical  destruc- 
tion of  German  economic  life.  It  is  something  far 
more  vital  to  the  mass  of  Germans  than  any  ques- 
tion of  Belgium  or  Alsace-Lorraine.  It  is,  there- 
fore, one  of  the  ideas  most  potent  in  nerving  the 
overstrained  German  people  to  continue  their  fight. 
Why  are  we,  and  why  are  the  German  people,  not 
given  some  definite  assurance  in  this  matter? 
Given  reparation  in  Europe,  is  Germany  to  be  al- 
lowed a  fair  share  in  the  control  and  trade  of  a 
pooled  and  neutralized  Central  Africa?  Sooner  or  >a5^ 
later  we  must  come  to  some  such  arrangement.  '..*i 
Why  not  state  it  plainly  now? 

A  second  question  is  equally  essential  to  any 
really  permanent  settlement,  and  it  is  one  upon 
which  these  eloquent  but  unsatisfactory  mouth- 
pieces of  ours  turn  their  backs  with  an  equal  reso- 
lution, and  that  is  the  fate  of  the  Ottoman  Empire. 
What  in  plain  English  are  we  up  to  there?     What- 


64   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

ever  happens,  that  Hurnpty  Diimpty  cannot  be 
put  back  as  it  was  before  the  war.  The  idea  of  the 
German  imperialist,  the  idea  of  our  own  little  band 
of  noisy  but  influential  imperialist  vulgarians,  is 
evidently  a  game  of  grab,  a  perilous  cutting  up  of 
these  areas  into  jostling  protectorates  and  sjjheres 
of  influence,  from  which  either  the  Germans  or  the 
Allies  (according  to  the  side  you  are  on)  are  to  be 
viciously  shut  out.  On  such  a  basis  this  war  is  a 
war  to  the  death.  Neither  Germany,  France, 
Britain,  Italy,  nor  Russia  can  live  prosperously  if 
its  trade  and  enterprise  is  shut  out  from  this  car- 
dinally important  area.  There  is,  therefore,  no 
alternative,  if  we  are  to  have  a  satisfactory  per- 
manent pacification  of  the  world,  but  local  self- 
development  in  these  regions  under  honestly  con- 
ceived international  control  of  police  and  transit 
and  trade.  Let  it  be  granted  that  that  will  be  a 
difficult  control  to  organize.  None  the  less  it  has 
to  be  attempted.  It  has  to  be  attempted  because 
there  is  no  other  way  of  peace.  But  once  that  con- 
ception has  been  clearly  formulated,  a  second  great 
motive  why  Germany  should  continue  fighting  will 
have  gone. 

The  third  great  issue  about  which  there  is  noth- 
ing but  fog  and  uncertainty  is  the  so-called  ^'  War 
After  the  War,"  the  idea  of  a  permanent  economic 
alliance  to  prevent  the  economic  recuperation  of 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FEEE  NATIONS       65 

Germany.  Upon  that  idea  German  imperialism,  in 
its  frantic  effort  to  keep  its  tormented  people  fight- 
ing, naturally  puts  the  utmost  stress.  The  threat 
of  War  after  the  War  robs  the  reasonable  German 
of  his  last  inducement  to  turn  on  his  Government 
and  insist  upon  peace.  Shut  out  from  all  trade, 
unable  to  buy  food,  deprived  of  raw  material,  peace 
would  be  as  bad  for  Germany  as  war.  He  Avill 
argue  naturally  enough  and  reasonably  enough 
that  he  may  as  well  die  fighting  as  starve.  This 
is  a  far  more  vital  issue  to  him  than  the  Belgian 
issue  or  Poland  or  Alsace-Lorraine.  Our  states- 
men waste  their  breath  and  slight  our  intelligence 
when  these  foreground  questions  are  thrust  in  front 
of  the  really  fundamental  matters.  But  as  the 
mass  of  sensible  people  in  every  country  concerned, 
in  Germany  just  as  much  as  in  France  or  Great 
Britain,  know  f)erfectly  well,  unimpeded  trade  is 
good  for  every  one  excejjt  a  few  rich  adventurers, 
and  restricted  trade  destroys  limitless  wealth  and 
welfare  for  mankind  to  make  a  few  private  for- 
tunes or  secure  an  advantage  for  some  imperialist 
clique.  We  want  an  end  to  thip  economic  strategy, 
we  want  an  end  to  this  plotting  of  Governmental 
cliques  against  the  general  welfare.  In  such 
offences  Germany  has  been  the  chief  of  sinners,  but 
which  among  the  belligerent  nations  can  throw  the 
first  stone?     Here  again  the  way  to  the  world's 


66   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

peace,  the  only  way  to  enduring  peace,  lies  through 
internationalism,  through  an  international  survey 
of  commercial  treaties,  through  an  international 
control  of  inter-State  shipping  and  transport  rates. 
Unless  the  Allied  statesmen  fail  to  understand  the 
implications  of  their  own  general  professions  they 
mean  that.  But  why  do  they  not  say  it  plainly? 
Why  do  they  not  shout  it  so  compactly  and  loudly 
that  all  Germany  will  hear  and  understand?  Why 
do  they  justify  imperialism  to  Germany?  Why  do 
they  maintain  a  threatening  ambiguity  towards 
Germany  on  all  these  matters? 

By  doing  so  they  leave  Germany  no  choice  but 
a  war  of  desperation.  They  underline  and  endorse 
the  claim  of  German  imperialism  that  this  is  a  war 
for  bare  existence.  They  unify  the  German  people. 
They  prolong  the  war. 

§  3 
Some  weeks  later  I  was  able,  at  the  invitation 
of  the  editor  to  carry  the  controversy  against  im- 
perialism into  the  Daily  Mail,  which  has  hitherto 
counted  as  a  strictly  imperialist  paper.  The  arti- 
cle that  follows  was  published  in  the  Baily  Mail 
under  the  heading,  "  Are  we  Sticking  to  the  Point? 
A  Discussion  of  War  Aims.-' 

Has  this  War- Aims  controversy  really  got  down 
to  essentials?     Is  the  purpose  of  this  world  conflict 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS   67 

from  first  to  last  too  complicated  for  brevity,  or 
can  we  boil  it  down  into  a  statement  compact 
enough  for  a  newspaper  article? 

And  if  we  can,  why  is  there  all  this  volumi- 
nous, uneasy,  unquenchable  disputation  about  War 
Aims? 

As  to  the  first  question,  I  w^ould  say  that  the 
gist  of  the  dispute  between  the  Central  Powers  and 
the  world  can  be  w^ritten  easily  without  undue 
cramping  in  an  ordinary  handwriting  upon  a  post- 
card. It  is  the  second  question  that  needs  answer- 
ing. And  the  reason  why  the  second  question  has 
to  be  asked  and  answered  is  this,  that  several  of  the 
Allies,  and  particularly  we  British,  are  not  being 
perfectly  plain  and  simple-minded  in  our  answer 
to  the  first,  that  there  is  a  division  among  us  and 
in  our  minds,  and  that  our  division  is  making  us 
ambiguous  in  our  behaviour,  that  it  is  weakening 
and  dividing  our  action  and  strengthening  and  con- 
solidating the  enemy,  and  that  unless  we  can  drag 
this  slurred-over  division  of  aim  and  spirit  into 
the  light  of  day  and  settle  it  now,  we  are  likely  to 
remain  double-minded  to  the  end  of  the  war,  to  split 
our  strength  while  the  war  continues  and  to  come 
out  of  the  settlement  at  the  end  with  nothing  nearly 
worth  the  strain  and  sacrifice  it  has  cost  us. 

And  first,  let  us  deal  with  that  postcard  and 
say  what  is  the  essential  aim  of  the  w^ar,  the  aim 


68   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

to  which  all  other  aims  are  subsidiary.  It  is,  we 
have  heard  repeated  again  and  again  by  every 
statesman  of  importance  in  every  Allied  country, 
to  defeat  and  destroy  military  imperialism,  to  make 
the  world  safe  for  ever  against  any  such  deliberate 
aggression  as  Germany  prepared  for  forty  years 
and  brought  to  a  climax  when  she  crossed  the 
Belgian  frontier  in  1914.  We  want  to  make  any- 
thing of  that  kind  on  the  part  of  Germany  or  of 
any  other  Power  henceforth  impossible  in  this 
world.  That  is  our  great  aim.  Whatever  other  ob- 
jects may  be  sought  in  this  war  no  responsible 
statesman  dare  claim  them  as  anything  but  subsi- 
diary to  that ;  one  can  say,  in  fact,  this  is  our  sole 
aim,  our  other  aims  being  but  parts  of  it.  Better 
that  millions  should  die  now,  we  declare,  than  that 
hundreds  of  millions  still  unborn  should  go  on  liv- 
ing, generation  after  generation,  under  the  black 
tyranny  of  this  imperialist  threat. 

There  is  our  common  agreement.  So  far,  at  any 
rate,  we  are  united.  The  question  I  would  put 
to  the  reader  is  this:  Are  we  all  logically,  sin- 
cerely, and  fully  carrying  out  the  plain  implications 
of  this  War  Aim?  Or  are  we  to  any  extent  mud- 
dling about  with  it  in  such  a  way  as  to  confuse  and 
disorganize  our  Allies,  weaken  our  internal  will, 
and  strengthen  the  enemy? 

Now  the  plain  meaning  of  this  supreme  declared 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS       69 

War  Aim  is  that  we  are  asking  Germany  to  alter 
her  ways.  We  are  asking  Germany  to  become  a 
different  Germany.  Either  Germany  lias  to  be 
utterly  smashed  up  and  destroyed  or  else  Germany 
has  to  cease  to  be  an  aggressive  military  imperial- 
ism. The  former  alternative  is  dismissed  by  most 
responsible  statesmen.  They  declare  that  they  do 
not  wish  to  destroy  the  German  people  or  the  Ger- 
man nationality  or  the  civilized  life  of  Germany. 
I  will  not  enlarge  here  upon  the  tedium  and  diffi- 
culties such  an  undertaking  would  present.  I  will 
dismiss  it  as  being  not  only  impossible,  but  also  as 
an  insanely  wicked  project.  The  second  alterna- 
tive, therefore,  remains  as  our  War  Aim.  I  do  not 
see  how  the  sloppiest  reasoner  can  evade  that.  As 
we  do  not  want  to  kill  Germany  we  must  want  to 
change  Germany.  If  we  do  not  want  to  wipe  Ger- 
many off  the  face  of  the  earth,  then  we  want  Ger- 
many to  become  the  prospective  and  trustworthy 
friend  of  her  fellow  nations.  And  if  words  have 
any  meaning  at  all,  that  is  saying  that  we  are  fight- 
ing to  bring  about  a  Kevolution  in  Germany.  We 
want  Germany  to  become  a  democratically  con- 
trolled State,  such  as  is  the  United  States  to-day, 
with  open  methods  and  pacific  intentions,  instead 
of  remaining  a  clenched  fist.  If  we  can  bring  that 
about  we  have  achieved  our  War  Aim ;  if  we  can- 
not, then  this  struggle  has  been  for  us  only  such 


70   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

loss  and  failure  as  liumanity  has  never  known  be- 
fore. 

But  do  we,  as  a  nation,  stick  closely  to  this  clear 
and  necessary,  this  only  possible,  meaning  of  our 
declared  War  Aim?  That  great,  clear-minded 
leader  among  the  Allies,  that  P^nglishman  who  more 
than  any  other  single  man  speaks  for  the  whole 
English-speaking  and  Western-thinking  commu- 
nity. President  Wilson,  has  said  definitely  that  this 
is  his  meaning.  America,  with  him  as  her  spokes- 
man, is  under  no  delusion;  she  is  fighting  con- 
sciously for  a  German  Revolution  as  the  essential 
War  Aim.  We  in  Europe  do  not  seem  to  be  so 
lucid.  I  think  myself  we  have  been,  and  are  still, 
fatally  and  disastrously  not  lucid.  It  is  high  time, 
and  over,  that  we  cleared  our  minds  and  got  down 
to  the  essentials  of  the  war.  We  have  muddled 
about  in  blood  and  dirt  and  secondary  issues  long 
enough. 

We  in  Britain  are  not  clear-minded,  I  would 
point  out,  because  we  are  double-minded.  No  good 
end  is  served  by  trying  to  ignore  in  the  fancied  in- 
terests of  "  unity ''  a  division  of  spirit  and  inten- 
tion that  trips  us  up  at  every  step.  We  are,  we 
declare,  fighting  for  a  complete  change  in  inter- 
national methods,  and  we  are  bound  to  stick  to  the 
logical  consequences  of  that.  We  have  placed  our- 
selves on  the  side  of  democratic  revolution  against 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS       71 

autocratic  monarchy,  and  we  cannot  aft'ord  to  go 
on  shilly-shallying  with  that  choice.  We  cannot 
in  these  days  of  black  or  white  i)lay  the  part  of 
lukewarm  friends  to  freedom.  I  will  not  remind 
the  reader  here  of  the  horrible  vacillations  and  in- 
consistencies of  policy  in  Greece  that  have  pro- 
longed the  war  and  cost  us  wealth  and  lives  be- 
yond measure,  but  President  Wilson  himself  has 
reminded  us  pungently  enough  and  sufficiently 
enough  of  the  follies  and  disingenuousness  of  our 
early  treatment  of  the  Russian  Revolution.  What 
I  want  to  point  out  here  is  the  supreme  importance 
of  a  clear  lead  in  this  matter  now  in  order  that  Ave 
should  state  our  War  Aims  effectively. 

In  every  war  there  must  be  two  sets  of  War 
Aims  kept  in  mind;  we  ought  to  know  what  we 
mean  to  do  in  the  event  of  victory  so  complete  that 
we  can  dictate  what  terms  we  choose,  and  we  ought 
to  know  what,  in  the  event  of  a  not  altogether  con- 
clusive tussle,  are  the  minimum  terms  that  we 
should  consider  justified  us  in  a  discontinuance  of 
the  tussle.  Now,  unless  our  leading  statesmen  are 
humbugs  and  unless  we  are  prepared  to  quarrel 
with  America  in  the  interests  of  the  monarchist 
institutions  of  Europe,  we  should,  in  the  event  of 
an  overwhelming  victory,  destroy  both  the  Ilohen- 
zollern  and  Ilapsburg  Imperialisms,  and  that 
means,  if  it  means  anything  at  all  and  is  not  mere 


lying  rhetoric,  that  we  should  insist  upon  Germany 
becoming  free  and  democratic,  that  is  to  say,  in 
effect  if  not  in  form  republican,  and  upon  a  series 
of  national  republics,  Polish,  Hungarian,  Serbo- 
Croatian,  Bulgarian,  and  the  like,  in  Eastern  Eu- 
rope grouped  together  if  possible  into  congenial 
groups  —  crowned  republics  it  might  be  in  some 
cases,  in  the  case  of  the  Serb  for  example,  but  in  no 
case  too  much  crowned  —  that  w^e  should  join  Avith 
this  renascent  Germany  and  with  these  thus  liberal- 
ized Powers  and  with  our  Allies  and  with  the  neu- 
trals in  one  great  League  of  Free  Nations,  trading 
freely  with  one  another,  guaranteeing  each  other 
freedom,  and  maintaining  a  w^orld-wide  peace  and 
disarmament  and  a  new  reign  of  law  for  mankind. 
If  that  is  not  what  we  are  out  for,  then  I  do  not 
understand  what  we  are  out  for;  there  is  dishonesty 
and  trickery  and  diplomacy  and  foolery  in  the 
struggle,  and  I  am  no  longer  whole-hearted  for  such 
a  half-hearted  war.  If  after  a  complete  victory  we 
are  to  bolster  up  the  Hohenzollerns,  Hapsburgs, 
and  their  relations,  set  up  a  constellation  of  more 
cheating  little  subordinate  kings,  and  reinstate  that 
system  of  diplomacies  and  secret  treaties  and  secret 
understandings,  that  endless  drama  of  international 
threatening  and  plotting,  that  never-ending  arming, 
that  has  led  us  after  a  hundred  years  of  Avaste  and 
muddle  to  the  supreme  tragedy  of  this  w^ar,  then  the 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS       73 

world  is  not  good  enough  for  me  and  I  shall  be  glad 
to  close  my  ejes  upon  it.  I  am  not  alone  in  these 
sentiments.  I  believe  that  in  writing  thus  I  am 
writing  the  opinion  of  the  great  mass  of  reasonable 
British,  French,  Italian,  Russian,  and  American 
men.  I  believe,  too,  that  this  is  the  desire  also  of 
great  numbers  of  Germans,  and  that  thev  would,  if 
they  could  believe  us,  gladly  set  aside  their  present 
rulers  to  achieve  this  plain  common  good  for  man- 
kind. 

But,  the  reader  will  say,  what  evidence  is  there 
of  any  republican  feeling  in  Germany?  That  is 
always  the  objection  made  to  any  reasonable  dis- 
cussion of  the  war  —  and  as  most  of  us  are  denied 
access  to  German  j)apers,  it  is  difficult  to  produce 
quotations;  and  even  when  one  does,  there  are 
plenty  of  fools  to  suggest  and  believe  that  the  en- 
tire German  Press  is  an  elaborate  camouflage.  Yet 
in  the  German  Press  there  is  far  more  criticism  of 
militant  imperialism  than  those  who  have  no  access 
to  it  can  imagine.  There  is  far  franker  criticism 
of  militarism  in  (lermany  than  there  is  of  reaction- 
ary Toryism  in  this  country,  and  it  is  more  free  to 
speak  its  mind. 

That,  however,  is  a  question  by  the  way.  It  is 
not  the  main  thing  that  I  have  to  say  here.  What 
I  have  to  say  here  is  that  in  (Jreat  Britain  —  T  will 
not  discuss  the  affairs  of  any  of  our  Allies  —  there 


74   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

are  groups  and  classes  of  people,  not  numerous,  not 
representative,  but  placed  in  high  and  influential 
positions  and  capable  of  free  and  public  utterance, 
who  are  secretly  and  bitterly  hostile  to  this  great 
War  Aim,  which  inspires  all  the  Allied  peoples. 
These  people  are  permitted  to  deny  —  our  peculiar 
censorship  does  not  hamper  them  —  loudly  and 
publicly  that  we  are  fighting  for  democracy  and 
world  freedom ;  "  Tosh,"  they  say  to  our  dead  in 
the  trenches,  "  you  died  for  a  mistake  " ;  they  jeer 
at  this  idea  of  a  League  of  Nations  making  an  end 
to  war,  an  idea  that  has  inspired  countless  brave 
lads  to  face  death  and  such  pains  and  hardships 
as  outdo  even  death  itself;  they  perplex  and  irri- 
tate our  Allies  by  propounding  schemes  for  some 
precious  economic  league  of  the  British  Empire  — 
that  is  to  treat  all  "  foreigners ''  with  a  common 
base  selfishness  and  stupid  hatred  —  and  they  in- 
trigue with  the  most  reactionary  forces  in  Russia. 
These  British  reactionaries  openly,  and  with  per- 
fect impunity,  represent  our  war  as  a  thing  as 
mean  and  shameful  as  Germany's  attack  on  Bel- 
gium, and  they  do  it  because  generosity  and  justice 
in  the  world  is  as  terrible  to  them  as  dawn  is  to  the 
creatures  of  the  night.  Our  Tories  blundered  into 
this  great  war,  not  seeing  whither  it  would  take 
them.  In  particular  it  is  manifest  now  by  a  hun- 
dred signs  that  they  dread  the  fall  of  monarchy  in 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS      75 

Germany  and  Austria.  Far  rather  would  they 
make  the  most  abject  surrenders  to  the  Kaiser  than 
deal  with  a  renascent  Republican  Germany.  The 
recent  letter  of  Lord  Lansdowne,  urging  a  peace 
with  German  imperialism,  was  but  a  feeler  from 
the  pacifist  side  of  this  most  un-English,  and  un- 
happily most  influential,  section  of  our  public  life. 
Lord  Lansdowne's  letter  was  the  letter  of  a  Peer 
who  fears  revolution  more  than  national  dishonour. 

But  it  is  the  truculent  wing  of  this  same  anti- 
democratic movement  that  is  far  more  active. 
While  our  sons  suffer  and  die  for  their  comforts 
and  conceit,  these  people  scheme  to  prevent  any 
communication  between  the  Republican  and  So- 
cialist classes  in  Germany  and  the  Allied  popula- 
tion. At  any  cost  this  class  of  pampered  and  priv- 
ileged traitors  intend  to  have  peace  while  the  Kaiser 
is  still  on  his  throne.  If  not  they  face  a  new  world 
—  in  which  their  part  will  be  small  indeed.  And 
with  the  utmost  ingenuity  they  maintain  a  danger- 
ous vagueness  about  the  Allied  peace  terms,  ivith 
the  sole  object  of  preventing  a  revolutionary  move- 
ment in  Gerynamj. 

Let  me  put  it  to  the  reader  exactly  why  our 
failure  to  say  plainly  and  exactly  and  conclusively 
what  we  mean  to  do  about  a  score  of  points,  and 
I)articularly  about  German  economic  life  after  the 
war,  paralyses  the  penitents  and  friends  and  help- 


7G   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

ers  that  we  could  now  find  in  Germany.  Let  me 
ask  the  reader  to  suppose  himself  a  German  in  Ger- 
many at  the  present  time.  Of  course  if  he  was,  he 
is  sure  that  he  would  hate  the  Kaiser  as  the  source 
of  this  atrocious  war,  he  would  be  bitterly  ashamed 
of  the  Belgian  iniquity,  of  the  submarine  murders, 
and  a  score  of  such  stains  upon  his  national  honour; 
and  he  would  want  to  alter  his  national  system  and 
make  peace.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  Germans 
are  in  that  mood  now.  But  as  most  of  us  have 
had  to  learn,  a  man  may  be  bitterly  ashamed  of 
this  or  that  incident  in  his  country's  history  —  what 
Englishman,  for  instance,  can  be  proud  of  Glencoe? 
—  he  may  disbelieve  in  half  its  institutions  and  still 
love  his  country  far  too  much  to  suffer  the  thought 
of  its  destruction.  I  prefer  to  see  my  country 
right,  but  if  it  comes  to  the  pinch  and  my  country 
sins  1  will  fight  to  save  her  from  the  destruction  her 
sins  may  have  brought  upon  her.  That  is  the  nat- 
ural way  of  man. 

But  suppose  a  German  wished  to  try  to  start  a 
revolutionary  movement  in  Germany  at  the  present 
time,  have  we  given  him  any  reason  at  all  for  sup- 
posing that  a  (Jermany  liberated  and  democratized, 
but,  of  course,  divided  and  weakened  as  she  would 
be  bound  to  be  in  the  process,  would  get  better 
terms  from  the  Allies  than  a  Germany  still  facing 
them,  militant,  imperialist,  and  wicked?     He  would 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS       77 

have  no  reason  for  believing  anything  of  the  sort. 
If  we  Allies  are  honest,  then  if  a  revolution  started 
in  Germany  to-day  we  should  if  anything  lower  the 
price  of  peace  to  Germany.  But  these  people  who 
pretend  to  lead  us  will  state  nothing  of  the  sort. 
For  them  a  revolution  in  Germany  w^ould  be  the 
signal  for  putting  up  the  price  of  peace.  At  any 
risk  they  are  resolved  that  that  German  revolution 
shall  not  happen.  Your  sane,  good  German,  let 
me  assert,  is  up  against  that  as  hard  as  if  he  was  a 
wicked  one.  And  so,  poor  devil,  he  has  to  put  his 
revolutionary  ideas  away,  they  are  hopeless  ideas 
for  him  because  of  the  power  of  the  British  reac^ 
tionary,  they  are  hopeless  because  of  the  line  we 
as  a  nation  take  in  this  matter,  and  he  has  to  go  on 
fighting  for  his  masters. 

A  plain  statement  of  our  war  aims  that  did  no 
more  than  set  out  honestly  and  convincingly  the 
terms  the  Allies  would  make  witH  a  democratic 
republican  Germany  —  republican  I  say,  because 
where  a  scrap  of  Hohenzollern  is  left  to-day  there 
will  be  a  fresh  militarism  to-morrow  —  would  abso- 
lutely revolutionize  the  internal  psychology  of 
Germany.  We  should  no  longer  face  a  solid  people. 
We  should  have  replaced  the  false  issue  of  Germany 
and  Britain  fighting  for  the  hegemony  of  Europe, 
the  lie  upon  which  the  German  Government  has 
always  traded,   and  in   which   our  extreme   Tory 


78   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

Press  has  always  supported  the  German  Govern- 
ment, by  the  true  issue,  which  his  freedom  versus 
imperialism,  the  League  of  Nations  versus  that 
net  of  diplomatic  roguery  and  of  aristocratic,  pluto- 
cratic, and  autocratic  greed  and  conceit  which 
dragged  us  all  into  this  vast  welter  of  bloodshed 
and  loss. 


VI 

THE  WAR  AIMS  OF  THE  WESTERN 
ALLIES 

Here,  quite  compactly,  is  a  plain  statement  of  the 
essential  cause  and  process  of  the  war  to  which  I 
would  like  to  see  the  Allied  Foreign  Offices  sub- 
scribe, and  which  I  would  like  to  have  placed 
plainly  before  the  German  mind.  It  embodies 
much  that  has  been  learnt  and  thought  out  since 
this  war  began,  and  I  think  it  is  much  truer  and 
more  fundamental  than  that  mere  raging  against 
German  "  militarism  ''  upon  which  our  politicians 
and  press  still  so  largely  subsist.  .  .  . 

The  enormous  development  of  war  methods  and 
war  material  within  the  last  fifty  years  has  made 
war  so  horrible  and  destructive  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  contemplate  a  future  for  mankind  from 
which  it  has  not  been  eliminated;  the  increased 
facilities  of  railway,  steamship,  automobile  travel 
and  air  navigation  have  brought  mankind  so  close 
together  that  ordinary  human  life  is  no  longer  safe 
anywhere  in  the  boundaries  of  the  little  states  in 
which  it  was  once  secure.  In  some  fashion  it  is 
now  necessary  to  achieve  sufficient  human  unity  to 

79 


80   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

establish  a  world  peace  and  save  the  future  of  man- 
kind. 

In  one  or  other  of  two  ways  only  is  that  unifica- 
tion possible.  Either  men  may  set  up  a  common 
league  to  keep  the  peace  of  the  earth,  or  one  state 
must  ultimately  become  so  great  and  powerful  as 
to  repeat  for  all  the  world  what  Rome  did  for  Eu- 
rope two  thousand  years  ago.  Either  we  must  have 
human  unity  by  a  league  of  existing  states  or  by 
an  Imperial  Conquest.  The  former  is  now  the 
declared  Aim  of  our  country  and  its  Allies ;  the  lat- 
ter is  manifestly  the  ambition  of  the  present  rulers 
of  Germany.  Whatever  the  complications  may 
have  been  in  the  earlier  stages  of  the  war,  due  to 
treaties  that  are  now  dead  letters  and  agreements 
that  are  extinct,  the  essential  issue  now  before 
every  man  in  the  world  is  this:  Is  the  unity  of 
mankind  to  be  the  unity  of  a  common  freedom,  in 
which  every  race  and  nationality  may  participate 
with  complete  self-respect,  playing  its  part,  accord- 
ing to  its  character,  in  one  great  world  community, 
or  is  it  to  be  reached  —  and  it  can  only  be  so  reached 
through  many  generations  of  bloodshed  and  strug- 
gle still,  even  if  it  can  be  ever  reached  in  this  way 
at  all  —  through  conquest  and  a  German  hege- 
mony? 

While  the  rulers  of  Germany  to-day  are  more 
openly  aggressive  and  imperialist  than  they  were 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS   81 

in  August,  1914,  the  Allies  arrayed  against  them 
have  made  great  progress  in  clearing  up  and  real- 
izing the  instincts  and  ideals  which  brought  them 
originally  into  the  struggle.  The  German  govern- 
ment offers  the  world  to-day  a  warring  future  in 
which  Germany  alone  is  to  be  secure  and  powerful 
and  proud.  Mankind  will  not  endure  that.  The 
Allies  offer  the  world  more  and  more  definitely  the 
scheme  of  an  organized  League  of  Free  Nations,  a 
rule  of  law  and  justice  about  the  earth.  To  fight 
for  that  and  for  no  other  conceivable  end,  the 
United  States  of  America,  with  the  full  sympathy 
and  co-operation  of  every  state  in  the  western  hemi- 
sphere, has  entered  the  war.  The  British  Empire 
in  the  midst  of  the  stress  of  the  great  war  has  set 
up  in  Dublin  a  Convention  of  Irishmen  of  all  opin- 
ions with  the  fullest  powers  of  deciding  upon  the 
future  of  their  country.  If  Ireland  were  not  di- 
vided against  herself  she  could  be  free  and  equal 
with  England  to-morrow.  It  is  the  open  intention 
of  Great  Britain  to  develop  representative  govern- 
ment, where  it  has  not  hitherto  existed,  in  India 
and  Egypt,  to  go  on  steadfastly  increasing  the 
share  of  the  natives  of  these  countries  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  their  own  lands,  until  they  too  become 
free  and  equal  members  of  the  world  league. 
Neither  France,  nor  Italy,  nor  Britain,  nor  Amer- 
ica has  ever  tampered  wath  the  shipping  of  other 


82      THE  LEAGUE  OF  FKEE  NATIONS 

countries  except  in  time  of  war,  and  the  trade  of 
the  British  Empire  has  been  impartially  open  to 
all  the  world.  The  extra-national  "  possessions," 
the  so-called  "  subject  nations  "  in  the  Empires  of 
Britain,  France,  Italy,  and  Japan,  are  in  fact  pos- 
sessions held  in  trust  against  the  day  when  the 
League  of  Free  Nations  will  inherit  for  mankind. 
Is  it  to  be  union  by  conquest  or  is  it  to  be  union 
by  league?  For  any  sort  of  man  except  the  Ger- 
man the  question  is,  will  you  be  a  free  citizen  or 
will  you  be  an  underling  to  the  German  imperial- 
ism? For  the  German  now  the  question  is  a  far 
graver  and  more  tragic  one.  For  him  it  is  this :  — 
"  You  belong  to  a  people  not  now  increasing  very 
rapidly,  a  numerous  people,  but  not  so  numerous 
as  some  of  the  great  peoples  of  the  world,  a  people 
very  highly  trained,  very  well  drilled  and  well 
armed,  perhaps  as  well  trained  and  drilled  and 
equipped  as  ever  it  will  be.  The  collapse  of  Rus- 
sian imperialism  has  made  you  safe  if  now  you  can 
get  peace,  and  you  can  get  a  peace  now  that  will 
neither  destroy  you  nor  humiliate  you  nor  open 
up  the  prospect  of  fresh  wars.  The  Allies  offer  you 
such  a  peace.  To  accept  it,  we  must  warn  you 
plainly,  means  refusing  to  go  on  with  the  manifest 
intentions  of  your  present  rulers,  which  are  to 
launch  you  and  your  children  and  your  children's 
children  upon  a  career  of  struggle  for  war  pre- 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FEEE  NATIONS      83 

dominance,  which  may  no  doubt  inflict  untold  de- 
privations and  miseries  upon  the  rest  of  mankind 
but  whose  end  in  the  long  run  for  Germany  and 
things  German  can  be  only  Judgment  and  Death." 
In  such  terms  as  these  the  Oceanic  Allies  could 
now  state  their  war-will  and  carry  the  world 
straightway  into  a  new  phase  of  human  history. 
They  could,  but  they  do  not.  For  alas  I  not  one  of 
them  is  free  from  the  entanglements  of  past  things ; 
when  we  look  for  the  wisdom  of  statesmen  we  find 
the  cunning  of  politicians;  when  open  speech  and 
plain  reason  might  save  the  world,  courts,  bureau- 
crats, financiers  or  profiteers  conspire. 


VII 

THE  FUTURE  OF  MONARCHY 

From  the  very  outset  of  this  war  it  was  manifest 
to  the  clear-headed  observer  that  only  the  complete 
victory  of  German  imperialism  could  save  the 
dynastic  system  in  Europe  from  the  fate  that  it 
had  challenged.  That  curious  system  had  been  the 
natural  and  unplanned  development  of  the  political 
complications  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries.  Two  systems  of  monarchies,  the  Bour- 
bon system  and  the  German,  then  ruled  Europe 
between  them.  With  the  latter  was  associated  the 
tradition  of  the  European  unity  under  the  Roman 
empire;  all  the  Germanic  monarchs  had  an  itch  to 
be  called  Caesar.  The  Kaiser  of  the  Austro-Hun- 
garian  empire  and  the  Czar  had,  so  to  speak,  the 
prior  claim  to  the  title.  The  Prussian  king  set  up 
as  a  Ciesar  in  1871 ;  Queen  Victoria  became  the 
Caesar  of  India  (Kaisir-i-Hind)  under  the  auspices 
of  Lord  Beaconsfield,  and  last  and  least  that  most 
detestable  of  all  Coburgers,  Ferdinand  of  Bulgaria, 
gave  Kaiserism  a  touch  of  quaint  absurdity  by  set- 
ting up  as  Czar  of  Bulgaria.  The  weakening  of 
the  Bourbon  system  by  the  French  revolution  and 

84 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS      85 

the  Napoleonic  adventure  cleared  the  way  for  the 
complete  ascendancy  of  the  Germanic  monarchies 
in  spite  of  the  breaking  away  of  the  United  States 
from  that  system. 

After  1871,  a  constellation  of  quasi-divine  Teu- 
tonic monarchs,  of  which  the  German  Emperor,  the 
German  Queen  Victoria,  the  German  Czar,  were 
the  greatest  stars,  formed  a  caste  apart,  inter- 
married only  among  themselves,  dominated  the 
world  and  was  regarded  with  a  mystical  awe  by 
the  ignorant  and  foolish  in  most  European  coun- 
tries. The  marriages,  the  funerals,  the  corona- 
tions, the  obstetrics  of  this  amazing  breed  of  idols 
were  matters  of  almost  universal  w^orship.  The 
Czar  and  Queen  Victoria  professed  also  to  be  the 
heads  of  religion  upon  earth.  The  court-centered 
diplomacies  of  the  more  firmly  rooted  monarchies 
steered  all  the  great  liberating  movements  of  the 
nineteenth  century  into  monarchical  channels. 
Italy  was  made  a  monarchy;  Greece,  the  mother- 
land of  republics,  was  handed  over  to  a  needy  scion 
of  the  Danish  royal  family ;  the  sturdy  peasants  of 
Bulgaria  suffered  from  a  kindred  imposition. 
Even  Norway  was  saddled  with  as  much  of  a  king 
as  it  would  stand,  as  a  condition  of  its  independ- 
ence. At  the  daw^n  of  the  twentieth  century  repub- 
lican freedom  seemed  a  remote  dream  beyond  the 
confines  of  Switzerland  and  France  —  and  it  had 


86   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

no  very  secure  air  in  France.  Reactionary  schem- 
ing has  been  an  intermittent  fever  in  the  French 
republic  for  six  and  forty  years.  Tlie  French 
foreign  office  is  still  undemocratic  in  tradition  and 
temper.  But  for  the  restless  disloyalty  of  the  Ho- 
henzollerns  this  German  kingly  caste  might  be 
dominating  the  world  to  this  day. 

Of  course  the  stability  of  this  Teutonic  dynastic 
system  in  Europe  —  which  will  presently  seem  to 
the  student  of  history  so  curious  a  halting-place 
upon  the  way  to  human  unity  —  rested  very  largely 
upon  the  maintenance  of  peace.  It  was  the  failure 
to  understand  this  on  the  part  of  the  German  and 
Bulgarian  rulers  in  particular  that  has  now 
brought  all  monarchy  to  the  question.  The  im- 
plicit theory  that  supported  the  intermarrying  Ger- 
man royal  families  in  Europe  was  that  their  inter- 
relationship and  their  aloofness  from  their  sub- 
jects was  a  mitigation  of  national  and  racial  ani- 
mosities. In  the  days  when  Queen  Victoria  was 
the  grandmother  of  Europe  this  was  a  plausible 
argument.  King,  Czar  and  Emperor,  or  Emperor 
and  Emperor  would  meet,  and  it  was  understood  that 
these  meetings  were  the  lubrication  of  European 
affairs.  The  monarch s  married  largely,  conspicu- 
ously, and  very  expensively  for  our  good.  Royal 
funerals,  marriages,  christenings,  coronations,  and 
jubilees  interrupted  traffic   and  stimulated  trade 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS   87 

everywhere.  They  seemed  to  give  a  raison  d'etre 
for  mankind.  It  is  the  Emperor  William  and  the 
Czar  Ferdinand  who  have  betrayed  not  only  hu- 
manity but  their  ow^n  strange  caste  by  shattering 
all  these  pleasant  illusions.  The  wisdom  of  Kant 
is  justified,  and  we  know^  now  that  kings  cause 
wars.  It  needed  the  shock  of  the  great  war  to 
bring  home  the  wdsdom  of  that  old  Scotchman  of 
Konigsberg  to  the  mind  of  the  ordinary  man. 
Moreover  in  support  of  the  dynastic  system  was  the 
fact  that  it  did  exist  as  the  system  in  possession, 
and  all  prosperous  and  intelligent  people  are  chary 
of  disturbing  existing  things.  Life  is  full  of  ves- 
tigial structures,  and  it  is  a  long  way  to  logical 
perfection.  Let  us  keep  on,  they  w^ould  argue,  with 
w^hat  we  have.  And  another  idea  which,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  made  men  patient  with  the  emperors  and 
kings  w^as  an  exaggerated  idea  of  the  insecurity  of 
republican  institutions. 

You  can  still  hear  very  old  dull  men  say  gravely 
that  "  kings  are  better  than  pronunciamentos " ; 
there  was  an  article  upon  Greece  to  this  effect  quite 
recently  in  that  uncertain  paper  The  New  States- 
man. Then  a  kind  of  illustrative  gesture  would 
be  made  to  the  South  American  republics,  although 
the  internal  disturbances  of  the  South  American 
republics  have  diminished  to  very  small  dimensions 
in  the  last  three  decades  and  although  pronuncia- 


88      THE  LExVGUE  OF  FEEE  NATIONS 

mentos  rarelj^  disturb  the  traffic  in  Switzerland, 
the  United  States,  or  France.  But  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  influence  of  the  Germanic  monarchy 
up  to  the  death  of  Queen  Victoria  upon  British 
thought  was  in  the  direction  of  estrangement  from 
the  two  great  modern  republics  and  in  the  direction 
of  assistance  and  propitiation  to  Germany.  We 
surrendered  Heligoland,  we  made  great  concessions 
to  German  colonial  ambitions,  we  allowed  ourselves 
to  be  jockeyed  into  a  phase  of  dangerous  hostility 
to  France.  A  practice  of  sneering  at  things  Ameri- 
can has  died  only  very  recently  out  of  English 
journalism  and  literature,  as  any  one  who  cares  to 
consult  the  bound  magazines  of  the  'seventies  and 
•eighties  may  soon  see  for  himself.  It  is  well  too  in 
these  days  not  to  forget  Colonel  Marchand,  if  only 
to  remember  that  such  a  clash  must  never  recur. 
But  in  justice  to  our  monarchy  we  must  remember 
that  after  the  death  of  Queen  Victoria,  the  spirit, 
if  not  the  forms,  of  British  kingship  was  greatly 
modified  by  the  exceptional  character  and  ability 
of  King  Edward  VII.  He  was  curiously  anti- 
German  in  spirit ;  he  had  essentially  democratic 
instincts ;  in  a  few  precious  years  he  restored  good 
will  between  France  and  Great  Britain.  It  is  no 
slight  upon  his  successor  to  doubt  whether  any  one 
could  have  handled  the  present  opportunities  and 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS       89 

risks  of  monarchy  in  Great  Britain  as  Edward 
could  have  handled  them. 

Because  no  doubt  if  monarchy  is  to  survive  in 
the  British  Empire  it  must  speedily  undergo  the 
profoundest  modification.  The  old  state  of  affairs 
cannot  continue.  The  European  dynastic  system, 
based  upon  the  intermarriage  of  a  group  of  mainly 
German  royal  families,  is  dead  to-day ;  it  is  freshly 
dead,  but  it  is  as  dead  as  the  rule  of  the  Incas.  It 
is  idle  to  close  our  eyes  to  this  fact.  The  revolu- 
tion in  Russia,  the  setting  up  of  a  republic  in  China, 
demonstrating  the  ripeness  of  the  East  for  free 
institutions,  the  entry  of  the  American  republics 
into  world  politics  —  these  things  slam  the  door 
on  any  idea  of  working  back  to  the  old  nineteenth- 
century  system.  People  calls  to  people.  "  Xo 
peace  with  the  Ilohenzollerns  ■'  is  a  cry  that  carries 
with  it  the  final  repudiation  of  emperors  and 
kings.  The  man  in  the  street  will  assure  you  he 
wants  no  diplomatic  peace.  Beyond  the  unstable 
shapes  of  the  present  the  political  forms  of  the 
future  rise  now  so  clearly  that  they  are  the  common 
talk  of  men.  Kant's  lucid  thought  told  us  long 
ago  that  the  peace  of  the  world  demanded  a  Avorld 
union  of  republics.  That  is  a  commonplace  remark 
now  in  every  civilized  community. 

The  stars  in  their  courses,  the  logic  of  circum- 


90   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

stances,  the  everyday  needs  and  everyday  intelli- 
gence of  men,  all  these  things  march  irresistibly 
towards  a  permanent  worhl  peace  based  on  demo- 
cratic republicanism.  The  question  of  the  future 
of  monarchy  is  not  whether  it  will  be  able  to  resist 
and  overcome  that  trend;  it  has  as  little  chance 
of  doing  that  as  the  Lama  of  Thibet  has  of  becom- 
ing Emperor  of  the  Earth.  It  is  whether  it  will 
resist  openly,  become  the  centre  and  symbol  of  a 
reactionary  resistance,  and  have  to  be  abolished  and 
swept  away  altogether  everywhere,  as  the  Roman- 
offs have  already  been  swept  away  in  Russia,  or 
whether  it  will  be  able  in  this  country  and  that  to 
adapt  itself  to  the  necessities  of  the  great  age  that 
dawns  upon  mankind,  to  take  a  generous  and  help- 
ful attitude  towards  its  own  modifications,  and  so 
survive,  for  a  time  at  any  rate,  in  that  larger  air. 

It  is  the  fashion  for  the  apologists  of  monarchy 
in  the  British  Empire  to  speak  of  the  British  system 
as  a  crowned  republic.  That  is  an  attractive 
phrase  to  people  of  republican  sentiments.  It  is 
quite  conceivable  that  the  British  Empire  may  be 
able  to  make  that  jjhrase  a  reality  and  that  the 
royal  line  may  continue,  a  line  of  hereditary  presi- 
dents, with  some  of  the  ancient  trappings  and 
something  of  the  picturesque  prestige  that,  as  the 
oldest  monarchy  in  Europe,  it  has  to-day.  Two 
kings  in   Europe  have  already  gone  far  towards 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FKEE  NATIONS   91 

realizing  this  conception  of  a  life  president;  both 
the  King  of  Italy  and  the  King  of  Norway  live  as 
simply  as  if  they  were  in  the  White  House  and  are 
far  more  accessible.  Along  that  line  the  British 
monarchy  must  go  if  it  is  not  to  go  altogether. 
Will  it  go  along  those  lines? 

There  are  many  reasons  for  hoping  that  it  will 
do  so.  The  Times  has  styled  the  crown  the 
"  golden  link ''  of  the  empire.  Australians  and 
Canadians,  it  was  argued,  had  little  love  for  the 
motherland  but  the  greatest  devotion  to  the 
sovereign,  and  still  truer  was  this  of  Indians, 
Egyptians,  and  the  like.  It  might  be  easy  to  press 
this  theory  of  devotion  too  far,  but  there  can  be 
little  doubt  that  the  British  Crown  does  at  present 
stand  as  a  symbol  of  unity  over  diversity  such  as 
no  other  crown,  unless  it  be  that  of  Austria- 
Hungary,  can  be  said  to  do.  The  British  crown  is 
not  like  other  crowns;  it  may  conceivably  take  a 
line  of  its  own  and  emerge  —  possibly  a  little  more 
like  a  hat  and  a  little  less  like  a  crown  —  from 
trials  that  may  destroy  every  other  monarchial 
system  in  the  world. 

Now  many  things  are  going  on  behind  the  scenes, 
many  little  indications  peep  out  upon  the  specula- 
tive watcher  and  vanish  again;  but  there  is  very 
little  that  is  definite  to  go  upon  at  the  present  time 
to  determine  how  far  the  monarchy  will  rise  to  the 


92   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

needs  of  this  great  occasion.  Certain  acts  and 
changes,  the  initiative  to  which  would  come  most 
gracefully  from  royalty  itself,  could  be  done  at 
this  present  time.  They  may  be  done  quite  soon. 
Upon  the  doing  of  them  wait  great  masses  of  public 
opinion.  The  first  of  these  things  is  for  the  British 
monarchy  to  sever  itself  definitely  from  the  Ger- 
man dynastic  system  with  which  it  is  so  fatally  en- 
tangled by  marriage  and  descent,  and  to  make  its 
intention  of  becoming  henceforth  more  and  more 
British  in  blood  as  well  as  spirit,  unmistakably 
plain.  This  idea  has  been  put  forth  quite  promi- 
nently in  the  Times.  The  king  has  been  asked  to 
give  his  countenance  to  the  sweeping  away  of  all 
those  restrictions  first  set  up  by  George  the  Third, 
upon  the  marriage  of  the  Royal  Princes  with  Brit- 
ish, French  and  American  subjects.  The  British 
Empire  is  very  near  the  limit  of  its  endurance  of  a 
kingly  caste  of  Germans.  The  choice  of  British 
royalty  between  its  peoples  and  its  cousins  cannot 
be  indefinitely  delayed.  Were  it  made  now  pub- 
licly and  boldly,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
decision  would  mean  a  renascence  of  monarchy,  a 
considerable  outbreak  of  royalist  enthusiasm  in  the 
Empire.  There  are  times  when  a  king  or  queen 
must  need  be  dramatic  and  must  a  little  anticipate 
occasions.  It  is  not  seemly  to  make  concessions 
perforce;  kings  may  not  make  obviously  unwilling 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FEEE  NATIONS       93 

surrenders ;  it  is  the  indecisive  kings  who  lose  their 
crowns. 

No  doubt  the  Anglicization  of  the  roval  family- 
by  national  marriages  would  gradually  merge  that 
family  into  the  general  body  of  the  British  peerage. 
Its  consequent  loss  of  distinction  might  be  accom- 
panied by  an  associated  fading  out  of  function, 
until  the  King  became  at  last  hardly  more  func- 
tional than  was  the  late  Duke  of  Norfolk  as  premier 
peer.  Possibly  that  is  the  most  desirable  course 
from  many  points  of  view. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  abandonment  of 
marriages  within  the  royal  caste  and  a  bobl  attempt 
to  introduce  a  strain  of  British  blood  in  the  royal 
family  does  not  in  itself  fulfil  all  that  is  needed  if 
the  British  king  is  indeed  to  become  the  crowned 
president  of  his  people  and  the  nominal  and  ac- 
cepted leader  of  the  movement  towards  republican 
institutions.  A  thing  that  is  productive  of  an 
enormous  amount  of  republican  talk  in  Oreat 
Britain  is  the  suspicion  —  I  believe  an  ill-founded 
suspicion  —  that  there  are  influences  at  work  at 
court  antagonistic  to  republican  institutions  in 
friendly  states  and  that  there  is  a  disposition  even 
to  sacrifice  the  interests  of  the  liberal  allies  to 
dynastic  sympathies.  These  things  are  not  to  be 
believed,  but  it  would  be  a  feat  of  vast  impressive- 
ness  if  there  were  something  like  a  royal  and  public 


9^   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

repudiation  of  the  weaknesses  of  cousinsbip.  The 
beha^dour  of  the  Allies  towards  that  great  Balkan 
statesman  Venizelos,  the  sacrificing  of  the  friendly 
Greek  republicans  in  favour  of  the  manifestly 
treacherous  King  of  Greece,  has  produced  the 
deepest  shame  and  disgust  in  many  quarters  that 
are  altogether  friendly,  that  are  even  warmly 
"  loyal  "  to  the  British  monarchy. 

And  in  a  phase  of  tottering  thrones  it  is  very 
undesirable  that  the  British  habit  of  asylum  should 
be  abused.  We  have  already  in  England  the  de- 
throned monarch  of  a  friendly  republic;  he  is  no 
doubt  duly  looked  after.  In  the  future  there  may 
be  a  shaking  of  the  autumnal  boughs  and  a  shower 
of  emperors  and  kings.  We  do  not  want  Great 
Britain  to  become  a  hotbed  of  reactionary  i)lotting 
and  the  starting-point  of  restoration  raids  into  the 
territories  of  emancipated  peoples.  This  is  par- 
ticularly desirable  if  presently,  after  the  Kaiser's 
death  —  which  by  all  the  statistics  of  Hohenzollern 
mortality  cannot  be  delayed  now  for  many  years  — 
the  present  Crown  Prince  goes  a-wandering.  We 
do  not  want  any  German  ex-monarchs;  Sweden  is 
always  open  to  them  and  friendly,  and  to  Sweden 
they  ought  to  go;  and  particularly  do  British  peo- 
ple dread  an  irruption  of  HohenzoUerns  or  Co- 
burgers.  Almost  as  undesirable  would  be  the 
arrival  of  the  Czar  and  Czarina.     It  is  supremely 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NxVTIONS      95 

important  that  no  wind  of  suspicion  sliould  blow 
between  us  and  the  freedom  of  Russia.  After  the 
war  even  more  than  during  the  war  will  the  enemy 
be  anxious  to  sow  discord  between  the  great  Rus- 
sian-speaking and  English-speaking  democracies. 
Quite  apart  from  the  scandal  of  their  inelegant  do- 
mesticities, the  establishment  of  the  Czar  and  Czar- 
ina in  England  with  frequent  and  easy  access  to  our 
royal  family  may  be  extraordinarily  unfortunate 
for  the  British  monarchy.  I  will  confess  a  certain 
sympathy  for  the  Czar  myself.  He  is  not  an  evil 
figure,  he  is  not  a  strong  figure,  but  he  has  that  sort 
of  weakness,  that  failure  in  decision,  which  trails 
revolution  in  its  wake.  He  has  ended  one  dynasty 
already.  The  British  royal  family  owes  it  to  itself, 
that  he  bring  not  the  infection  of  his  misfortunes 
to  Windsor. 

The  security  of  the  British  monarchy  lies  in  such 
a  courageous  severance  of  its  destinies  from  the 
Teutonic  dynastic  system.  Will  it  make  that  sever- 
ance? There  I  share  an  almost  universal  igno- 
rance. The  loyalty  of  the  British  is  not  to  what 
kings  are  too  prone  to  call  *'  my  person,"  not  to  a 
chosen  and  admired  family,  but  to  a  renascent  man- 
kind. We  have  fought  in  this  war  for  Belgium,  for 
France,  for  general  freedom,  for  civilization  and  the 
whole  future  of  mankind,  far  more  than  for  our- 
selves.    We  have  not  fought  for  a  king.     We  are 


90   THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

discovering,'  in  that  sj)irit  of  human  nuity  that  lies 
below  the  idea  of  a  Leagne  of  Free  Nations  the  real 
invisible  king  of  onr  heart  and  race.  But  we  will 
very  gladly  go  on  with  our  task  under  a  nominal 
king  unless  he  hampers  us  in  the  task  that  grows 
ever  more  plainly  before  us.  .  .  .  That,  I  think,  is 
a  fair  statement  of  British  public  opinion  on  this 
question.  But  every  day  when  I  am  in  London  I 
walk  past  Buckingham  Palace  to  lunch  at  my  club, 
and  I  look  at  that  not  very  expressive  fagade  and 
wonder  —  and  we  all  wonder  —  what  thoughts  are 
going  on  behind  it  and  what  acts  are  being  con- 
ceived there.  Out  of  it  there  might  yet  come  some 
gesture  of  acceptance  magnificent  enough  to  set 
beside  President  Wilson's  magnificent  declaration 
of  war.  .  .  , 

These  are  things  in  the  scales  of  fate.  I  will  not 
pretend  to  be  able  to  guess  even  which  way  the 
scales  will  swing. 


VIII 

THE  PLAIN  NECESSITY  FOR  A  LEAGUE 

Great  as  the  sacrifices  of  prejudice  and  preconcep- 
tion which  any  effective  realization  of  this  idea  of  a 
League  of  Free  Nations  will  demand,  difficult  as  the 
necessary  delegations  of  sovereignty  must  be,  none 
the  less  are  such  sacrifices  and  difficulties  unavoid- 
able. People  in  France  and  Italy  and  Great  Brit- 
ain and  Germany  alike  have  to  subdue  their  minds 
to  the  realization  that  some  such  League  is  now  a 
necessity  for  them  if  their  peace  and  national  life 
are  to  continue.  There  is  no  prospect  before  them 
but  either  some  such  League  or  else  great  humilia- 
tion and  disastrous  warfare  driving  them  down  to- 
Tvards  social  dissolution ;  and  for  the  United  States 
it  is  only  a  question  of  a  little  longer  time  before 
the  same  alternatives  have  to  be  faced. 

Whether  this  war  ends  in  the  complete  defeat  of 
Germany  and  German  imperialism,  or  in  a  revolu- 
tionary modernization  of  Germany,  or  in  a  prac- 
tical triumph  for  the  Hohenzollerns,  are  considera- 
tions that  affect  the  nature  and  scope  of  the 
League,  but  do  not  affect  its  essential  necessity.  In 
the  first  two  cases  the  League  of  Free  Nations  will 

97 


98      THE  LEAGUE  OF  FKEE  NiVTIONS 

be  a  world  league  including  German}'  as  a  prin- 
cipal partner,  in  the  latter  case  the  League  of  Free 
Nations  will  be  a  defensive  league  standing  stead- 
fast against  the  threat  of  a  world  imperialism,  and 
watching  and  restraining  with  one  common  will  the 
homicidal  maniac  in  its  midst.  But  in  all  these 
cases  there  can  be  no  great  alleviation  of  the  evils 
that  now  blacken  and  threaten  to  ruin  human  life 
altogether,  unless  all  the  civilized  and  peace-seeking 
peoples  of  the  world  are  pledged  and  locked  to- 
gether under  a  common  law  and  a  common  world 
policy.  There  must  rather  be  an  intensification 
of  these  evils.  There  must  be  wars  more  evil  than 
this  war  continuing  this  war,  and  more  destructive 
of  civilized  life.  There  can  be  no  peace  and  hope 
for  our  race  but  an  organized  peace  and  hope, 
armed  against  disturbance  as  a  state  is  armed 
against  mad,  ferocious,  and  criminal  men. 

Now,  there  are  two  chief  arguments,  running  one 
into  the  other,  for  the  necessity  of  merging  our  ex- 
isting sovereignties  into  a  greater  and,  if  possible, 
a  world-wide  league.  The  first  is  the  present  geo- 
graphical impossibility  of  nearly  all  the  existing 
European  states  and  empires ;  and  the  second  is  the 
steadily  increasing  disproportion  between  the  tor- 
tures and  destructions  inflicted  by  modern  warfare 
and  any  possible  advantages  that  may  arise  from  it. 
Underlying  both  arguments  is  the  fact  that  modern 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS       99 

developments  of  mechanical  science  have  brought 
the  nations  of  Europe  together  into  too  close  a 
proximity.  This  present  war,  more  than  anything 
else,  is  a  violent  struggle  between  old  political  ideas 
and  new  antagonistic  conditions. 

It  is  the  unhappy  usage  of  our  schools  and  uni- 
versities to  study  the  history  of  mankind  only  dur- 
ing periods  of  mechanical  unprogressiveness.  The 
historical  ideas  of  Europe  range  between  the  time 
when  the  Greeks  were  going  about  the  world  on  foot 
or  horseback  or  in  galleys  or  sailing  ships  to  the 
days  when  Napoleon,  Wellington,  and  Nelson  w^ere 
going  about  at  very  much  the  same  pace  in  much 
the  same  vehicles  and  vessels.  At  the  advent  of 
steam  and  electricity  the  muse  of  history  holds  her 
nose  and  shuts  her  eyes.  Science  wull  study  and 
get  the  better  of  a  modern  disease,  as,  for  example, 
sleeping  sickness,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  has  no 
classical  standing ;  but  our  history  schools  w^ould  be 
shocked  at  the  bare  idea  of  studying  the  effect  of 
modern  means  of  communication  upon  administra- 
tive areas,  large  or  small.  This  defect  in  our  his- 
torical training  has  made  our  minds  politically 
sluggish.  We  fail  to  adapt  readily  enough.  In 
small  things  and  great  alike  we  are  trying  to  run 
the  world  in  areas  marked  out  in  or  before  the  eight- 
eenth century,  regardless  of  the  fact  that  a  man  or 
an  army  or  an  aeroplane  can  get  in  a  few  minutes  or 


100     THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

a  few  hours  to  points  that  it  would  have  taken  days 
or  weeks  to  reach  under  the  old  foot-aud-horse  con- 
ditions. That  matters  nothing  to  the  learned  men 
who  instruct  our  statesmen  and  politicians.  It 
matters  everything  from  the  point  of  view  of  social 
and  economic  and  political  life.  And  the  grave 
fact  to  consider  is  that  all  the  great  states  of  Eu- 
rope, except  for  the  unification  of  Italy  and  Ger- 
many, are  still  much  of  the  size  and  in  much  the 
same  boundaries  that  made  them  strong  and  safe 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  clos- 
ing years  of  the  foot-horse  period.  The  British  em- 
pire grew  and  was  organized  under  those  condi- 
tions, and  had  to  modify  itself  only  a  little  to  meet 
the  needs  of  steam  shipping.  All  over  the  w^orld 
are  its  linked  possessions  and  its  ports  and  coaling 
stations  and  fastnesses  on  the  trade  routes.  And 
British  people  still  look  at  the  red-splashed  map  of 
the  world  with  the  profoundest  self-satisfaction, 
blind  to  the  swift  changes  that  are  making  that 
scattered  empire  —  if  it  is  to  remain  an  isolated 
system  —  almost  the  most  dangerous  conceivable. 
Let  me  ask  the  British  reader  who  is  disposed 
to  sneer  at  the  League  of  Nations  and  say  he  is  very 
well  content  with  the  empire,  thank  you,  to  get  his 
atlas  and  consider  one  or  two  propositions.  And, 
first,  let  him  think  of  aviation.  I  can  assure  him, 
because  upon  this  matter  I  have  some  special  knowl- 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS     101 

edge,  that  long-distance  air  travel  for  men,  for  let- 
ters and  light  goods  and  for  bombs,  is  continual  1}^ 
becoming  more  practicable.  But  the  air  routes  that 
air  transport  will  follow  must  go  over  a  certain 
amount  of  land,  for  this  reason  that  every  few  hun- 
dred miles  at  the  longest  the  machine  must  come 
down  for  petrol.  A  flying  machine  with  a  safe  non- 
stop range  of  1500  miles  is  still  a  long  way  off.  It 
may  indeed  be  permanently  impracticable  because 
there  seems  to  be  an  upward  limit  to  the  size  of  an 
aeroplane  engine.  And  now  will  the  reader  take 
the  map  of  the  world  and  study  the  air  routes  from 
London  to  the  rest  of  the  empire?  He  will  find 
them  perplexing  —  if  he  wants  them  to  be  ''  All- 
Ked."  Happily  this  is  not  a  British  difficulty  only. 
Will  he  next  study  the  air  routes  from  Paris  to  the 
rest  of  the  French  possessions?  And,  finally,  will 
he  study  the  air  routes  out  of  Germany  to  any- 
where? The  Germans  are  as  badly  off  as  any  peo- 
ple. But  we  are  all  badly  off.  So  far  as  world  air 
transit  goes  any  country  can,  if  it  chooses,  choke 
any  adjacent  country.  Directly  any  trade  diffi- 
culty breaks  out,  any  country  can  begin  a  vexatious 
campaign  against  its  neighbour's  air  traffic.  It  can 
oblige  it  to  alight  at  the  frontier,  to  follow  pre- 
scribed routes,  to  land  at  specified  places  on  those 
routes  and  undergo  examinations  that  will  waste 
precious  hours.     But  so  far  as  I  can  see,  no  Euro- 


102     THE  LEAGUE  OP  FREE  NATIONS 

pean  statesman,  German  or  Allied,  have  begun  to 
give  their  attention  to  this  amazing  diflSculty. 
Without  a  great  pooling  of  air  control,  either  a 
world-wide  pooling  or  a  pooling  at  least  of  the 
Atlantic-Mediterranean  Allies  in  one  Air  League, 
the  splendid  peace  possibilities  of  air  transport  — 
and  they  are  indeed  splendid  —  must  remain  very 
largely  a  forbidden  possibility  to  mankind. 

And  as  a  second  illustration  of  the  way  in  which 
changing  conditions  are  altering  political  ques- 
tions, let  the  reader  take  his  atlas  and  consider  the 
case  of  that  impregnable  fastness,  that  great  naval 
station,  that  Key  to  the  Mediterranean,  Gibraltar. 
British  boys  are  brought  up  on  Gibraltar  and  the 
Gibraltar  idea.  To  the  British  imagination  Gib- 
raltar is  almost  as  sacred  a  national  symbol  as  the 
lions  in  Trafalgar  Square.  Now,  in  his  atlas  the 
reader  will  almost  certainly  find  an  inset  map  of 
this  valuable  possession,  coloured  bright  red.  The 
inset  map  will  have  attached  to  it  a  small  scale  of 
miles.  From  that  he  will  be  able  to  satisfy  himself 
that  there  is  not  an  inch  of  the  rock  anywhere  that 
is  not  within  five  miles  or  less  of  Spanish  land,  and 
that  there  is  rather  more  than  a  semicircle  of  hills 
round  the  rock  within  a  range  of  seven  or  eight 
miles.  That  is  much  less  than  the  range  of  a  six- 
teen-inch  gun.  In  other  words,  the  Spaniards  are 
in  a  position  to  knock  Gibraltar  to  bits  whenever 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS     103 

they  Avant  to  do  so,  or  to  smash  and  sink  any  ships 
in  its  harbour.  They  can  hit  it  on  every  side. 
Consider,  moreover,  that  there  are  long  sweeps  of 
coast  north,  south,  and  west  of  the  Rock,  from 
which  torpedoes  could  be  discharged  at  any  ship 
that  approached.  Inquire  further  where  on  the 
Rock  an  aeroplane  can  land.  And  having  ascer- 
tained these  things,  ask  yourself  what  is  the  present 
value  of  Gibraltar? 

I  will  not  multiply  disagreeable  instances  of  this 
sort,  though  it  would  be  easy  enough  to  do  so  in  the 
case  both  of  France  and  Italy  as  well  as  of  Great 
Britain.  I  give  them  as  illustrations  of  the  way  in 
which  everj'where  old  securities  and  old  arrange- 
ments must  be  upset  by  the  greater  range  of  modern 
things.  Let  us  get  on  to  more  general  conditions. 
There  is  not  a  capital  city  in  Europe  that  twenty 
years  from  now  will  not  be  liable  to  a  bombing  raid 
done  by  hundreds  or  even  thousands  of  big  aero- 
planes, upon  or  even  before  a  declaration  of  war,  and 
there  is  not  a  line  of  sea  communication  that  will 
not  be  as  promptly  interrupted  by  the  hostile  sub- 
marine. I  point  these  things  out  here  only  to  carry 
home  the  fact  that  the  ideas  of  sovereign  isolation 
and  detachment  that  were  perfectly  valid  in  1900, 
the  self-sufficient  empire,  Imperial  Zollverein  and 
all  that  stuff,  and  damn  the  foreigner!  are  now,  be- 
cause of  the  enormous  changes  in  range  of  action 


104     THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

and  facility  of  locomotion  that  have  been  going  on, 
almost  as  wild — or  would  be  if  we  were  not  so  fa- 
tally accustomed  to  them — and  quite  as  dangerous, 
as  the  idea  of  setting  up  a  free  and  sovereign  state 
in  the  Isle  of  Dogs.  All  the  European  empires  are 
becoming  vulnerable  at  every  point.  Surely  the 
moral  is  obvious.  The  only  wise  course  before  the 
allied  European  powers  now  is  to  put  their  national 
conceit  in  their  pockets  and  to  combine  to  lock  up 
their  foreign  policy,  their  trade  interests,  and  all 
their  imperial  and  international  interests  into  a 
League  so  big  as  to  be  able  to  withstand  the  most 
sudden  and  treacherous  of  blows.  And  surely  the 
only  completely  safe  course  for  them  and  mankind 
—  hard  and  nearly  impossible  though  it  may  seem 
at  the  present  juncture  —  is  for  them  to  lock  up 
into  one  unity  with  a  democratized  Germany  and 
with  all  the  other  states  of  the  earth  into  one  peace- 
maintaining  League. 

If  the  reader  will  revert  again  to  his  atlas  he  will 
see  very  clearly  that  a  strongly  consolidated  League 
of  Free  Nations,  even  if  it  consisted  only  of  our 
present  allies,  would  in  itself  form  a  combination 
with  so  close  a  system  of  communication  about  the 
world,  and  so  great  an  economic  advantage,  that  in 
the  long  run  it  could  oblige  Germany  and  the  rest 
of  the  world  to  come  in  to  its  council.  Divided  the 
Oceanic  Allies  are,  to  speak  plainly,  geographical 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS      105 

rags  and  nakedness;  united  they  are  a  world.  To 
set  about  organizing  that  League  now,  with  its 
necessary  repudiation  on  the  part  of  Britain, 
France,  and  Italy,  of  a  selfish  and,  it  must  be  re- 
membered in  the  light  of  these  things  I  have  but 
hinted  at  here,  a  notv  hopelessly  unpracticahle  im- 
perialism, would,  I  am  convinced,  lead  quite  rapidly 
to  a  great  change  of  heart  in  Germany  and  to  a 
satisfactory  peace.  But  even  if  T  am  wrong 
in  that,  then  all  the  stronger  is  the  reason  for  bind- 
ing, locking  and  uniting  the  allied  powers  together. 
It  is  the  most  dangerous  of  delusions  for  eacli 
and  all  of  them  to  suppose  that  either  Britain, 
France  or  Italy  can  ever  stand  alone  again  and  be 
secure. 

And  turning  now  to  the  other  aspect  of  these 
consequences  of  the  development  of  material  sci- 
ence, it  is  too  often  assumed  that  this  war  is  being 
as  horrible  and  destructive  as  war  can  be.  There 
never  was  so  great  a  delusion.  This  war  has  only 
begun  to  be  horrible.  No  doubt  it  is  much  more 
horrible  and  destructive  than  any  former  war,  but 
even  in  comparison  with  the  fall  possibilities  of 
known  and  existing  means  of  destruction  it  is  still  a 
mild  war.  Perhaps  it  will  never  rise  to  its  full 
possibilities.  At  the  present  stage  there  is  not  a 
combatant,  except  perhaps  America,  which  is  not 
now  practising  a  pinching  economy  of  steel  and 


106      THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

other  mechanical  material.  The  Germans  are  run- 
ning short  of  first-class  flying  men,  and  if  we  and 
our  allies  continue  to  press  the  air  attack,  and  seek 
out  and  train  our  OY>m  vastly  greater  resources  of 
first  quality  young  airmen,  the  Germans  may  come 
as  near  to  being  "  driven  out  of  the  air  "  as  is  pos- 
sible. I  am  a  firmer  believer  than  ever  I  was  in 
the  possibility  of  a  complete  victory  over  Germany 
—  through  and  by  the  air.  But  the  occasional 
dropping  of  a  big  bomb  or  so  in  London  is  not  to  be 
taken  as  anything  but  a  minimum  display  of  what 
air  war  can  do.  In  a  little  while  now  our  alliance 
should  be  in  a  position  to  commence  day  and  night 
continuous  attacks  upon  the  Rhine  towns.  Not 
hour-long  raids  such  as  London  knows,  but  week- 
long  raids.  Then  and  then  only  shall  we  be  able 
to  gauge  the  really  horrible  possibilities  of  the  air 
war.  They  are  in  our  hands  and  not  in  the  hands 
of  the  Germans.  In  addition  the  Germans  are  at  a 
huge  disadvantage  in  their  submarine  campaign. 
Their  submarine  campaign  is  only  the  feeble 
shadow  of  what  a  submarine  campaign  might  be. 
Turning  again  to  the  atlas  the  reader  can  see  for 
himself  that  the  German  and  Austrian  submarines 
are  obliged  to  come  out  across  very  narrow  fronts. 
A  fence  of  mines  less  than  three  hundred  miles  long 
and  two  hundred  feet  deep  would,  for  example,  com- 
pletely bar  their  exit  through  the  North  Sea.     The 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS     107 

U-boats  run  the  gauntlet  of  that  long  narrow  sea 
and  pay  a  heavy  toll  to  it.  If  only  our  Admiralty 
would  tell  the  German  public  what  that  toll  is  now, 
there  would  come  a  time  when  German  seamen 
would  no  longer  consent  to  go  down  in  them  Con- 
sider, however,  what  a  submarine  campaign  would 
be  for  Great  Britain  if  instead  of  struggling 
through  this  bottleneck  it  were  conducted  from  the 
coast  of  Norway,  where  these  pests  might  harbour 
in  a  hundred  liords.  Consider  too  what  this 
weapon  may  be  in  twenty  years'  time  in  the  hands  of 
a  country  in  the  position  of  the  United  States. 
Great  Britain,  if  she  is  not  altogether  mad,  will 
cease  to  be  an  island  as  soon  as  possible  after  the 
war,  by  piercing  the  Channel  Tunnel — how  different 
our  transport  problem  would  be  if  we  had  that  now ! 
—  but  such  countries  as  Australia,  New  Zealand, 
and  Japan,  directly  they  are  involved  in  the  future 
in  a  war  against  any  efficient  naval  power  with  an 
unimpeded  sea  access,  will  be  isolated  forthwith.  I 
cannot  conceive  that  any  of  the  great  ocean  powers 
will  rest  content  until  such  a  tremendous  possibility 
of  blockade  as  the  submarine  has  created  is  securely 
vested  in  the  hands  of  a  common  league  beyond  any 
power  of  sudden  abuse. 

It  must  always  be  remembered  that  this  war  is 
a  mechanical  war  conducted  by  men  whose  disci- 
pline renders  them  uninventive,  who  know  little  or 


108     THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

nothing  of  mechanism,  who  are  for  the  most  part 
struggling  blindly  to  get  things  back  to  the  coudi 
tions  for  which  they  were  trained,  to  Napoleonic 
conditions,  with  infantry  and  cavalry  and  compara- 
tively light  guns,  the  so-called  "  war  of  manoeuvres." 
It  is  like  a  man  engaged  in  a  desperate  duel  who 
keeps  on  trying  to  make  it  a  game  of  cricket.  Most 
of  these  soldiers  detest  every  sort  of  mechanical 
device;  the  tanks,  for  example,  which,  used  with 
imagination,  might  have  given  the  British  and 
French  overwhelming  victory  on  the  western  front, 
were  subordinated  to  the  usual  cavalry  "  break 
through  ''  idea.  I  am  not  making  any  particular 
complaint  against  the  British  and  French  generals 
in  saying  this.  It  is  what  must  happen  to  any 
country  which  entrusts  its  welfare  to  soldiers.  A 
soldier  has  to  be  a  severely  disciplined  man,  and  a 
severely  disciplined  man  cannot  be  a  versatile  man, 
and  on  the  whole  the  British  army  has  been  as  re- 
ceptive to  novelties  as  any.  The  German  generals 
have  done  no  better;  indeed,  they  have  not  done  so 
well  as  the  generals  of  the  Allies  in  this  respect. 
But  after  the  war,  if  the  world  does  not  organize 
rapidly  for  peace,  then  as  resources  accumulate  a 
little,  the  mechanical  genius  will  get  to  work  on  the 
possibilities  of  these  ideas  that  have  merely  been 
sketched  out  in  this  war.  We  shall  get  big  land 
ironclads  which  will  smash  towns.     We  shall  get 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS      109 

air  offensives  —  let  the  experienced  London  reader 
think  of  an  air  raid  going  on  hour  after  hour,  day 
after  day  —  that  will  really  burn  out  and  wreck 
towns,  that  will  drive  people  mad  by  the  thousand. 
We  shall  get  a  very  complete  cessation  of  sea  tran- 
sit. Even  land  transit  may  be  enormously  ham- 
j>ered  by  aerial  attack.  I  doubl  if  any  sort  of  social 
order  will  really  be  able  to  stand  the  strain  of  a 
fully  worked  out  modern  war.  AVe  have  still,  of 
course,  to  feel  the  full  shock  effects  even  of  this  war. 
Most  of  the  combatants  are  going  on,  as  sometimes 
men  who  have  incurred  grave  wounds  will  still  go 
on  for  a  time  —  without  feeling  them.  The  educa- 
tional, biological,  social,  economic  punishment  that 
has  already  been  taken  by  each  of  the  European 
countries  is,  I  feel,  very  much  greater  than  we  yet 
realize.  Kussia,  the  heaviest  and  worst-trained 
combatant,  has  indeed  shown  the  effects  and  is 
down  and  sick,  but  in  three  years'  time  all  Europe 
will  know  far  better  than  it  does  now  the  full  price 
of  this  war.  And  the  shock  effects  of  the  next  war 
will  have  much  the  same  relation  to  the  shock  effects 
of  this,  as  the  shock  of  breaking  a  finger-nail  has  to 
the  shock  of  crushing  in  a  body.  In  Kussia  to-day 
we  have  seen,  not  indeed  social  revolution,  not  the 
replacement  of  one  social  order  by  another,  but  dis- 
integration. Let  not  national  conceit  blind  us. 
Germany,  France,  Italy,  Britain  are  all  slipping 


110     THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS 

about  on  that  same  slope  down  which  Russia  has 
slid.  Which  goes  first,  it  is  hard  to  guess,  or 
whether  w^e  shall  all  hold  out  to  some  kind  of  Peace. 
At  present  the  social  discipline  of  France  and  Brit- 
ain seems  to  be  at  least  as  good  as  that  of  Germany, 
and  the  morale  of  the  Rhineland  and  Bavaria  has 
probably  to  undergo  very  severe  testing  by  system- 
atized and  steadily  increasing  air  punishment  as 
this  year  goes  on.  The  next  war  —  if  a  next  war 
comes  —  will  see  all  Germany,  from  end  to  end, 
vulnerable  to  aircraft.  .  .  . 

Such  are  the  two  sets  of  considerations  that  will, 
I  think  ultimately  prevail  over  every  prejudice  and 
every  difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  League  of  Free 
Nations.  Existing  states  have  become  impossible 
as  absolutely  independent  sovereignties.  The  new 
conditions  bring  them  so  close  together  and  give 
them  such  extravagant  powers  of  mutual  injury 
that  they  must  either  sink  national  pride  and  dynas- 
tic ambitions  in  subordination  to  the  common  wel- 
fare of  mankind  or  else  utterly  shatter  one  another. 
It  becomes  more  and  more  plainly  a  choice  between 
the  League  of  Free  Nations  and  a  famished  race  of 
men  looting  in  search  of  non-existent  food  amidst 
the  smouldering  ruins  of  civilization.  In  the  end 
I  believe  that  the  common  sense  of  mankind  will 
prefer  a  revision  of  its  ideas  of  nationality  and  im- 
perialism, to  the  latter  alternative.     It  may  take 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS       111 

obstinate  men  a  few  more  years  yet  of  blood  and 
horror  to  learn  this  lesson,  but  for  my  own  part  I 
cherish  an  obstinate  belief  in  the  potential  reason- 
ableness of  mankind. 


IX 

DEMOCRACY 

All  the  talk,  all  the  aspiration  and  work  that  is 
making  now  towards  this  conception  of  a  world 
securely  at  peace,  under  the  direction  of  a  League 
of  Free  Nations,  has  interwoven  with  it  an  idea  that 
is  often  rather  felt  than  understood,  the  idea  of 
Democracy.  Not  only  is  justice  to  prevail  between 
race  and  race  and  nation  and  nation,  but  also  be- 
tween man  and  man ;  there  is  to  be  a  universal 
respect  for  human  life  throughout  the  earth ;  the 
world,  in  the  words  of  President  Wilson,  is  to  be 
made  "  safe  for  democracy/'  I  would  like  to  sub- 
ject that  word  to  a  certain  scrutiny  to  see  whether 
the  things  we  are  apt  to  think  and  assume  al)Out  it 
correspond  exactly  with  the  feeling  of  the  word. 
I  would  like  to  ask  what,  under  modern  conditions, 
does  democracy  mean,  and  whether  we  have  got  it 
now  anywhere  in  the  Avorld  in  its  fulness  and  com- 
pletion. 

And  to  begin  with  I  must  have  a  quarrel  with 
the  word  itself.  The  eccentricities  of  modern  edu- 
cation make  us  dependent  for  a  number  of  our  pri- 
mary political  terms  upon  those  used  by  the  think- 
ers of  the  small  Greek  republics  of  ancient  times 

112 


DEMOCRACY  113 

before  those  petty  states  collapsed,  through  sheer 
political  ineptitude,  before  the  Macedonians.  They 
thought  in  terms  of  states  so  small  that  it  was  pos- 
sible to  gather  all  the  citizens  together  for  the  pur- 
poses of  legislation.  These  states  were  scarcely 
more  than  what  we  English  might  call  sovereign 
urban  districts.  Fast  communications  were  made 
by  runners;  even  the  policeman  with  a  bicycle  of 
the  modern  urban  district  w^as  beyond  the  scope  of 
the  Greek  imagination.  There  were  no  railways, 
telegraphs,  telephones,  books  or  newspapers,  there 
was  no  need  for  the  state  to  maintain  a  system  of 
education,  and  the  affairs  of  the  state  were  so  simple 
that  they  could  be  discussed  and  decided  by  the 
human  voice  and  open  voting  in  an  assembly  of  all 
the  citizens.  That  is  what  democracy  meant.  In 
Andorra,  or  perhaps  in  Canton  Uri,  such  democracy 
may  still  be  possible;  in  any  other  modern  state  it 
cannot  exist.  The  opposite  term  to  it  was  oli- 
garchy, in  which  a  small  council  of  men  controlled 
the  affairs  of  the  state.  Oligarchy,  narrowed  down 
to  one  man,  became  monarchy.  If  you  wished  to 
be  polite  to  an  oligarchy  you  called  it  an  aristoc- 
racy ;  if  you  wished  to  point  out  that  a  monarch  was 
rather  by  way  of  being  self-appointed,  you  called 
him  a  Tyrant.  An  oligarchy  with  a  property  quali- 
fication was  a  plutocracy. 

]Xow  the  modern  intelligence,  being  under  a  sort 


lU  DEMOCRACY 

of  magic  slavery  to  the  ancient  Greeks,  has  to  adapt 
all  these  terms  to  the  problems  of  states  so  vast  and 
complex  that  they  have  the  same  relation  to  the 
Greek  states  that  the  anatomy  of  a  man  has  to  the 
anatomy  of  a  jellyfish.  They  are  not  only  greater 
in  extent  and  denser  in  population,  but  they  are  in- 
creasingly innervated  by  more  and  more  rapid 
means  of  communication  and  excitement.  In  the 
classical  past  —  except  for  such  special  cases  as 
the  feeding  of  Rome  with  Egyptian  corn  —  trade 
was  a  traffic  in  luxuries  or  slaves,  war  a  small  spe- 
cialized affair  of  infantry  and  horsemen  in  search 
of  slaves  and  loot,  and  empire  the  exaction  of  trib- 
ute. The  modern  state  must  conduct  its  enormous 
businesses  through  a  system  of  ministries;  its  vital 
interests  go  all  round  the  earth;  nothing  that  any 
ancient  Greek  would  have  recognized  as  democracy 
is  conceivable  in  a  great  modern  state.  It  is  abso- 
lutely necessary,  if  we  are  to  get  things  clear  in  our 
minds  about  what  democracy  really  means  in  rela- 
tion to  modern  politics,  first  to  make  a  quite  freish 
classification  in  order  to  find  what  items  there  really 
are  to  consider,  and  then  to  inquire  which  seem  to 
correspond  more  or  less  closely  in  spirit  with  our 
ideas  about  ancient  democracy. 

Now  there  are  two  primary  classes  of  ideas  about 
government  in  the  modern  world  depending  upon 
our  conception  of  the  political  capacity  of  the  com- 


DEMOCRACY  115 

mon  man.  We  may  suppose  he  is  a  microcosm, 
with  complete  ideas  and  wishes  about  the  state  and 
the  world,  or  we  may  suppose  that  he  isn't.  We 
may  believe  that  the  common  man  can  govern,  or 
we  may  believe  that  he  can't.  We  may  think 
further  along  the  first  line  that  he  is  so  wise  and 
good  and  right  that  we  only  have  to  get  out  of  his 
way  for  him  to  act  rightly  and  for  the  good  of  all 
mankind,  or  we  may  doubt  it.  And  if  we  doubt 
that  w^e  may  still  believe  that,  though  perhaps  "  you 
can  fool  all  the  people  some  of  the  time,  and  some  of 
the  people  all  the  time,"  the  common  man,  express- 
ing himself  by  a  majority  vote,  still  remains  the 
secure  source  of  human  wisdom.  But  next,  while 
we  may  deny  this  universal  distribution  of  political 
wisdom,  we  may,  if  we  are  sufficiently  under  the 
sway  of  modern  ideas  about  collective  psychology, 
believe  that  it  is  necessary  to  poke  up  the  political 
indifference  and  inability  of  the  common  man  as 
much  as  possible,  to  thrust  political  ideas  and  facts 
upon  him,  to  incite  him  to  a  watchful  and  critical 
attitude  towards  them,  and  above  all  to  secure  his 
assent  to  the  proceedings  of  the  able  people  who 
are  managing  public  affairs.  Or  finally,  we  may 
treat  him  as  a  thing  to  be  ruled  and  not  consulted. 
Let  me  at  this  stage  make  out  a  classificatory  dia- 
gram of  these  elementary  ideas  of  government  in  a 
modern  country. 


116  DEMOCRACY 

Class  I.     It  is  supposed  that  the  common  man 
can  govern : 

(1)  without  further  organization  (Anarchy)  ; 

(2)  through  a  majority  vote  by  delegates. 
Class  II.     It  is  supposed  that  the  common  man 

cannot  govern,  and  that  government  therefore  must 
be  through  the  agency  of  Able  Persons  who  may  be 
classified  under  one  of  the  following  sub-heads, 
either  as 

(1)  persons  elected  by  the  common  man  be- 

cause he  believes  them  to  be  persons  able 
to  govern  —  just  as  he  chooses  his  doc- 
tors as  persons  able  to  secure  health, 
and  his  electrical  engineers  as  persons 
able  to  attend  to  his  tramways,  lighting, 
etc.,  etc.; 

(2)  persons  of  a  special  class,  as,  for  example, 

persons  born  and  educated  to  rule  (e.g. 
Aristocracy) ,  or  rich  business  adventur- 
ers {Plutocracy)  who  rule  without  con- 
sulting the  common  man  at  all. 

To  which  two  sub-classes  we  may  per- 
haps add  a  sort  of  intermediate  stage 
between  them,  namely : 

(3)  persons  elected  by  a  special  class  of  voter. 
Monarchy  may  be  either  a  special  case  of  Class 

II  (1),  (2)  or  (3),  in  which  the  persons  who  rule 
have  narrowed  down  in  number  to  one  person,  and 


DEMOCRACY  117 

the  duration  of  monarchy  may  be  either  for  life 
or  a  term  of  years.  These  two  classes  and  the  five 
sub-classes  cover,  I  believe,  all  the  elementary  polit- 
ical types  in  our  world. 

Now  in  the  constitution  of  a  modern  state,  be- 
cause of  the  conflict  and  confusion  of  ideas,  all  or 
most  of  these  five  sub-classes  may  usually  be  found 
intertwined.  The  British  constitution,  for  in- 
stance, is  a  complicated  tangle  of  arrangements, 
due  to  a  struggle  between  the  ideas  of  Class  I  (2), 
Class  II  (3),  tending  to  become  Class  II  (1)  and 
Class  II  (2)  in  both  its  aristocratic  and  monarchist 
forms.  The  American  constitution  is  largely  domi- 
nated by  Class  I  (2),  from  which  it  breaks  away  in 
the  case  of  the  President  to  a  short-term  monarchist 
aspect  of  Class  II  (1).  I  will  not  elaborate  this 
classification  further.  I  have  made  it  here  in  order 
to  render  clear  first,  that  what  we  moderns  mean 
by  democracy  is  not  what  the  Greeks  meant  at  all, 
that  is  to  say,  direct  government  by  the  assembly  of 
all  the  citizens,  and  secondly  and  more  important, 
that  the  word  "  democracy  ''  is  being  used  very 
largely  in  current  discussion,  so  that  it  is  impossible 
to  say  in  any  particular  case  whether  the  intention 
is  Class  I  (2)  or  Class  II  (1),  and  that  we  have 
to  make  up  our  minds  whether  we  mean,  if  I  may 
coin  two  phrases,  ^'  delegate  democracy  • '  or  "  selec- 
tive democracy,"  or  some  definite  combination  of 


118  DEMOCRACY 

these  two,  when  we  talk  about  "  democracy,"  before 
W'e  can  get  on  much  beyond  a  generous  gesture  of 
equality  and  enfranchisement  towards  our  brother 
man.  The  word  is  being  used,  in  fact,  confusingly 
for  these  two  quite  widely  different  things. 

Now,  it  seems  to  me  that  though  there  has  been 
no  very  clear  discussion  of  the  issue  between  those 
two  very  opposite  conceptions  of  democracy,  largely 
because  of  the  want  of  proper  distinctive  terms, 
there  has  nevertheless  been  a  wide  movement  of 
public  opinion  away  from  ''  delegate  democracy  " 
and  towards  "  selective  democracy.''  People  have 
gone  on  saying  ^^  democracy,"  w^hile  gradually 
changing  its  meaning  from  the  former  to  the  latter. 
It  is  notable  in  Great  Britain,  for  example,  that 
while  there  has  been  no  perceptible  diminution  in 
our  faith  in  democracy,  there  has  been  a  growing 
criticism  of  ^^  party  "  and  ''  politicians,"  and  a  great 
weakening  in  the  power  and  influence  of  represen- 
tatives and  representative  institutions.  There  has 
been  a  growing  demand  for  personality  and  initia- 
tive in  elected  persons.  The  press,  which  w^as  once 
entirely  subordinate  politically  to  parliamentary 
politics,  adopts  an  attitude  towards  parliament  and 
party  leaders  now^adays  which  would  have  seemed 
inconceivable  insolence  in  the  days  of  Lord  Palmer- 
ston.  And  there  has  been  a  vigorous  agitation  in 
support  of  electoral  methods  w^hich  are  manifestly 


DEMOCRACY  119 

calculated    to    subordinate  "  delegated ''    to    ''  se- 
lected "  men. 

The  movement  for  electoral  reform  in  Great  Brit- 
ain at  the  present  time  is  one  of  quite  fundamental 
importance  in  the  development  of  modern  democ- 
racy. The  case  of  the  reformers  is  that  heretofore 
modern  democracy  has  not  had  a  fair  opportunity 
of  showing  its  best  possibilities  to  the  world,  be- 
cause the  methods  of  election  have  persistently  set 
aside  the  better  types  of  public  men,  or  rather  of 
would-be  public  men,  in  favour  of  mere  party  hacks. 
That  is  a  story  common  to  Britain  and  the  Ameri- 
can democracies,  but  in  America  it  was  expressed 
in  rather  different  terms  and  dealt  with  in  a  less 
analytical  fashion  than  it  has  been  in  Great  Brit- 
ain. It  was  not  at  first  clearly  understood  that  the 
failure  of  democracy  to  produce  good  government 
came  through  the  preference  of  '^  delegated ''  over 
^'  selected  "  men,  the  idea  of  delegation  did  in  fact 
dominate  the  minds  of  both  electoral  reformers  and 
electoral  conservatives  alike,  and  the  earlier  stages 
of  the  reform  movement  in  Great  Britain  were  in- 
spired not  so  much  by  the  idea  of  getting  a  better 
type  of  representative  as  by  the  idea  of  getting  a 
fairer  representation  of  minorities.  It  was  only 
slowly  that  the  idea  that  sensible  men  do  not  usually 
belong  to  any  political  "  party  -^  took  hold.  It  is 
only  now  being  realized  that  what  sensible  men 


120  DEMOCRACY 

desire  in  a  member  of  parliament  is  honour  and 
capacity  rather  than  a  mechanical  loyalty  to  a 
"  platform."  They  do  not  want  to  dictate  to  their 
representative;  they  want  a  man  they  can  trust  as 
their  representative.  In  the  fifties  and  sixties  of 
the  last  century,  in  which  this  electoral  reform 
movement  began  and  the  method  of  Proportional 
Representation  was  thought  out,  it  was  possible  for 
the  reformers  to  work  untroubled  upon  the  assump- 
tion that  if  a  man  was  not  necessarily  born  a 

".  .  .  little  Liber-al, 
or  else  a  little  Coaservative," 

he  mast  at  least  be  a  Liberal- Unionist  or  a  Con- 
servative Free-Trader.  But  seeking  a  fair  repre- 
sentation for  party  minorities,  these  reformers 
produce  a  system  of  voting  at  once  simple  and  in- 
capable of  manipulation,  that  leads  straight,  not  to 
the  representation  of  small  parties,  but  to  a  type 
of  democratic  government  by  selected  best  men. 

Before  giving  the  essential  features  of  that  sys- 
tem, it  may  be  well  to  state  in  its  simplest  form 
the  evils  at  which  the  reform  aims.  An  election, 
the  reformers  point  out,  is  not  the  simple  matter  it 
appears  to  be  at  the  first  blush.  Methods  of  voting 
can  be  manipulated  in  various  ways,  and  nearly 
every  method  has  its  own  liability  to  falsification. 
We  may  take  for  illustration  the  commonest,  sim- 


DEMOCRACY  121 

plest  case  —  the  case  that  is  the  perplexity  of  every 
clear-thinking  voter  under  British  or  American 
conditions  —  the  case  of  a  constituency  in  which 
every  elector  has  one  vote,  and  which  returns  one 
representative  to  Parliament.  The  naive  theory  on 
which  people  go  is  that  all  the  possible  candidates 
are  put  up,  that  each  voter  votes  for  the  one  he 
likes  best,  and  that  the  best  man  wins.  The  bitter 
experience  is  that  hardly  ever  are  there  more  than 
two  candidates,  and  still  more  rarely  is  either  of 
these  the  best  man  possible.  Suppose,  for  example, 
the  constituency  is  mainly  Conservative.  A  little 
group  of  pothouse  politicians,  wire-pullers,  busy- 
bodies,  local  journalists,  and  small  lawj^ers,  work- 
ing for  various  monetary  interests,  have  ^'  cap- 
tured ''  the  local  Conservative  organization.  They 
have  time  and  energy  to  capture  it,  because  they 
have  no  other  interest  in  life  except  that.  It  is 
their  '^  business,"  and  honest  men  are  busy  with 
other  duties.  For  reasons  that  do  not  appear  these 
local  "  workers  "  put  up  an  unknown  Mr.  Goldbug 
as  the  official  Conservative  candidate.  He  pro- 
fesses a  generally  Conservative  view  of  things,  but 
few  people  are  sure  of  him  and  few  people  trust 
him.  Against  him  the  weaker  (and  therefore  still 
more  venal)  Liberal  organization  now  puts  up  a 
Mr.  Kent  shire  (formerly  Wurstberg)  to  represent 
the  broader  tlioiight  and  finer  generosities  of  the 


122  DEMOCRACY 

Euglisli  mind.  A  number  of  Conservative  gentle- 
men, generally  too  busy  about  their  honest  busi- 
nesses to  attend  the  party  "  smokers  "  and  the  party 
cave,  realize  suddenly  that  they  want  Goldbug 
hardly  more  than  they  want  Wurstberg.  They  put 
up  their  long-admired,  trusted,  and  able  friend  Mr. 
Sanity  as  an  Independent  Conservative. 

Every  one  knows  the  trouble  that  follows.  Mr. 
Sanity  is  "  going  to  split  the  party  vote.''  The 
hesitating  voter  is  told,  with  considerable  truth, 
that  a  vote  given  for  Mr.  Sanity  is  a  vote  given  for 
Wurstberg.  At  any  price  the  constituency  does  not 
want  Wurstberg.  So  at  the  eleventh  hour  Mr. 
Sanity  is  induced  to  withdraw,  and  Mr.  Goldbug 
goes  into  Parliament  to  misrepresent  this  con- 
stituency. And  so  with  most  constituencies,  and 
the  result  is  a  legislative  body  consisting  largely  of 
men  of  unknown  character  and  obscure  aims,  whose 
only  credential  is  the  wearing  of  a  party  label. 
They  come  into  parliament  not  to  forward  the  great 
interests  they  ostensibly  support,  but  with  an  eye 
to  the  railway  jobbery,  corporation  business,  con- 
cessions and  financial  operations  that  necessarily 
go  on  in  and  about  the  national  legislature.  That 
in  its  simplest  form  is  the  dilemma  of  democracy. 
The  problem  that  has  confronted  modern  democracy 
since  its  beginning  has  not  really  been  the  repre- 
sentation of  organized  minorities  —  they  are  very 


DEMOCRACY  123 

well  able  to  look  after  themselves  —  but  the  pro- 
tection of  the  unorganized  mass  of  husihj  occu- 
pied, fairly  intelligent  hi  en  from  the  tricks  of 
the  specialists  who  work  the  party  machines.  We 
know  Mr.  Sauity,  we  want  Mr.  Sanity,  but  we  are 
too  busy  to  watch  the  incessant  intrigues  to  oust 
him  in  favour  of  the  obscurely  influential  people, 
politically  docile,  who  are  favoured  by  the  organ- 
ization. We  want  an  organizer-proof  method  of 
voting.  It  is  in  answer  to  this  demand,  as  the  out- 
come of  a  most  careful  examination  of  the  ways  in 
which  voting  may  be  protected  from  the  exploitation 
of  those  who  work  elections,  that  the  method  of 
Proportional  Representation  with  a  single  trans- 
ferable vote  has  been  evolved.  It  is  organizer- 
proof.  It  defies  the  caucus.  If  you  do  not  like  Mr. 
Goldbug  you  can  put  up  and  vote  for  Mr.  Sanity, 
giving  Mr.  Goldbug  your  second  choice,  in  the  most 
perfect  confidence  that  in  any  case  your  vote  cannot 
help  to  return  Mr.  Wurstberg. 

With  Proportional  Representation  with  a  single 
transferable  vote  (this  specification  is  necessary, 
because  there  are  also  the  inferior  imitations  of 
various  election-riggers  figuring  as  proportional 
representation),  it  is  impossible  to  prevent  the 
elective  candidature  of  independent  men  of  repute 
heside  the  official  candidates. 

The  method  of  voting  under  the  Proportional 


124  DEMOCRACY 

Eepresentation  system  has  been  ignorantly  repre- 
sented as  complex.  It  is  really  almost  ideally 
simple.  You  mark  the  list  of  candidates  with  num- 
bers in  the  order  of  your  preference.  For  example, 
you  believe  A  to  be  absolutely  the  best  man  for 
parliament;  you  mark  him  1.  But  B  you  think  is 
the  next  best  man ;  you  mark  him  2.  That  means 
that  if  A  gets  an  enormous  amount  of  support,  ever 
so  many  more  votes  than  he  requires  for  his  return, 
your  vote  will  not  be  wasted.  Only  so  much  of 
your  vote  as  is  needed  will  go  to  A ;  the  rest  will  go 
to  B.  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  if  A  has  so  little  sup- 
port that  his  chances  are  hopeless,  you  will  not  have 
thrown  your  vote  away  upon  him;  it  will  go  to  B. 
Similarly  you  may  indicate  a  third,  a  fourth,  and  a 
fifth  choice;  if  3'ou  like  you  may  mark  every  name 
on  3'Our  paper  with  a  number  to  indicate  the  order 
of  your  preferences.  And  that  is  all  the  voter  has 
to  do.  The  reckoning  and  counting  of  the  votes 
presents  not  the  slightest  difficulty  to  any  one  used 
to  the  business  of  computation.  Silly  and  dis- 
honest men,  appealing  to  still  sillier  audiences,  have 
got  themselves  and  their  audiences  into  humorous 
muddles  over  this  business,  but  the  principles  are 
perfectly  plain  and  simple.  Let  me  state  them 
here;  they  can  be  fully  and  exactly  stated,  with 
various  ornaments,  comments,  arguments,  sarcastic 


DEMOCRACY  125 

remarks,  and  digressions,  in  seventy  lines  of  this 
t3^pe. 

It  will  be  evident  that,  in  any  election  under 
this  system,  any  one  who  has  got  a  certain  propor- 
tion of  No.  1  votes  will  be  elected.  If,  for  instance, 
five  people  have  to  be  elected  and  20,000  voters  vote, 
then  any  one  who  has  got  4001  first  votes  or  more 
must  be  elected.  4001  votes  is  in  that  case  enough 
to  elect  a  candidate.  This  suflQcient  number  of 
votes  is  called  the  quota,  and  any  one  who  has  more 
than  that  number  of  votes  has  obviously  got  more 
votes  than  is  needful  for  election.  So,  to  begin 
with,  the  voting  papers  are  classified  according  to 
their  first  votes,  and  any  candidates  who  have  got 
more  than  a  quota  of  first  votes  are  forthwith  de- 
clared elected.  But  most  of  these  elected  men 
would  under  the  old  system  waste  votes  because 
they  would  have  too  many.  For  manifestly  a  can- 
didate who  gets  more  than  the  quota  of  votes  needs 
only  a  fraction  of  each  of  these  votes  to  return  him. 
If,  for  instance,  he  gets  double  the  quota,  he  needs 
only  half  each  vote.  He  takes  that  fraction,  there- 
fore, under  this  new  and  better  system,  and  the  rest 
of  each  vote  is  entered  on  to  No.  2  upon  that  voting 
paper.  And  so  on.  Now  this  is  an  extremely  easy 
job  for  an  accountant  or  skilled  computer,  and  it  is 
quite  easily  checked  by  any  other  accountant  and 


126  DEMOCRACY 

skilled  computer.  A  reader  with  a  bad  arithme- 
tical education,  ignorant  of  the  very  existence  of 
such  a  thing  as  a  slide  rule,  knowing  nothing  of  ac- 
count keeping,  who  thinks  of  himself  working  out 
the  resultant  fractions  with  a  stumpy  pencil  on  a 
bit  of  greasy  paper  in  a  bad  light,  may  easily  think 
of  this  transfer  of  fractions  as  a  dangerous  and  ter- 
rifying process.  It  is,  for  a  properly  trained  man, 
the  easiest,  exactest  job  conceivable.  The  Cash 
Register  people  will  invent  machines  to  do  it  for 
you  while  you  wait.  What  happens,  then,  is  that 
every  candidate  with  more  than  a  quota,  beginning 
with  the  top  candidate,  sheds  a  fraction  of  each  vote 
he  has  received,  down  the  list,  and  the  next  one 
sheds  his  surplus  fraction  in  the  same  way,  and  so 
on  until  candidates  lower  in  the  list,  who  are  at  first 
below  the  quota,  fill  up  to  it.  When  all  the  surplus 
votes  of  the  candidates  at  the  head  of  the  list  have 
been  disposed  of,  then  the  hopeless  candidates  at  the 
bottom  of  the  list  are  dealt  with.  The  second  votes 
on  their  voting  papers  are  treated  as  whole  votes 
and  distributed  up  the  list,  and  so  on.  It  will  be 
plain  to  the  quick-minded  that,  towards  the  end, 
there  will  be  a  certain  chasing  about  of  little  frac- 
tions of  votes,  and  a  slight  modification  of  the  quota 
due  to  voting  papers  having  no  second  or  third 
preferences  marked  upon  them,  a  chasing  about 
that  it  will  be  difficult  for  an  untrained  intelligence 


DEMOCRACY  127 

to  follow.  But  untrained  intelligences  are  not  re- 
quired to  follow  it.  For  the  skilled  computer  these 
things  offer  no  difficulty  at  all.  And  they  are  not 
difficulties  of  principle  but  of  manipulation.  One 
might  as  well  refuse  to  travel  in  a  taxicab  until  the 
driver  had  explained  the  magneto  as  refuse  to  ac- 
cept the  principle  of  Proportional  Representation 
by  the  single  transferable  vote  until  one  had 
remedied  all  the  deficiencies  of  one's  arithmetical 
education.  The  fundamental  principle  of  the 
thing,  that  a  candidate  who  gets  more  votes  than  he 
Tvants  is  made  to  hand  on  a  fraction  of  each  vote 
to  the  voter's  second  choice,  and  that  a  candidate 
whose  chances  are  hopeless  is  made  to  hand  on  the 
whole  vote  to  the  voter's  second  choice,  so  that  prac- 
tically only  a  small  number  of  votes  are  ineffective, 
is  within  the  compass  of  the  mind  of  a  boy  of  ten. 
But  simple  as  this  method  is,  it  completely  kills 
the  organization  and  manipulation  of  voting.  It 
completely  solves  the  GoldbugWurstberg  Sanity 
problem.  It  is  knave-proof — short  of  forging, 
stealing,  or  destroying  voting  papers.  A  man  of 
repute,  a  leaderly  man,  may  defy  all  the  party  or- 
ganizations in  existence  and  stand  beside  and  be  re- 
turned over  the  head  of  a  worthless  man,  though 
the  latter  be  smothered  with  party  labels.  That  is 
the  gist  of  this  business.  The  difference  in  effect 
between  Proportional  Representation  and  the  old 


128  DEMOCRACY 

method  of  voting  must  ultimately  be  to  cliauge  the 
moral  and  intellectual  quality  of  elected  persons 
profoundly.  People  are  only  beginning  to  realize 
the  huge  possibilities  of  advance  inherent  in  this 
change  of  political  method.  It  means  no  less  than 
a  revolution  from  "  delegate  democracy  "  to  "  selec- 
tive democracy. '^ 

Now,  I  will  not  pretend  to  be  anything  but  a 
strong  partizan  in  this  matter.  When  I  speak  of 
^'  democracy  "  I  mean  ^'  selective  democracy."  I 
believe  that  "  delegate  democracy  '•  is  already 
provably  a  failure  in  the  world,  and  that  the  reason 
why  to-day,  after  three  and  a  half  years  of  struggle, 
we  are  still  fighting  Oerman  autocracy  and  fighting 
with  no  certainty  of  absolute  victory,  is  because  the 
affairs  of  the  three  great  Atlantic  democracies  have 
been  largely  in  the  hands  not  of  selected  men  but 
of  delegated  men,  men  of  intrigue  and  the  party 
machine,  of  dodges  rather  than  initiatives,  second- 
rate  men.  When  Lord  Ilaldane,  defending  his 
party  for  certain  insufiiciencies  in  their  preparation 
for  the  eventuality  of  the  great  war,  pleaded  that 
they  had  no  "  mandate  "  from  the  country  to  do 
anything  of  the  sort,  he  did  more  than  commit 
political  suicide,  he  bore  conclusive  witness  against 
the  whole  system  which  had  made  him  what  he  was. 
Neither  Britain  nor  France  in  this  struggle  has 
produced  better  statesmen  nor  better  generals  than 


DEMOCRACY  1^9 

the  German  autocracy.  Tlie  British  and  French 
Foreign  OfiSces  are  old  monarchist  organizations 
still.  To  this  day  the  British  and  French  poli- 
ticians haggle  and  argue  with  the  German  ministers 
upon  petty  points  and  debating  society  advantages, 
smart  and  cunning,  while  the  peoples  perish.  The 
one  man  who  has  risen  to  the  greatness  of  this  great 
occasion,  the  man  who  is,  in  default  of  any  rival, 
rapidly  becoming  the  leader  of  the  world  towards 
peace,  is  neither  a  delegate  politician  nor  the  choice 
of  a  monarch  and  his  councillors.  He  is  the  one 
authoritative  figure  in  these  transactions  whose 
mind  has  not  been  subdued  either  by  long  discipline 
in  the  party  machine  or  by  court  intrigue,  who  has 
continued  his  education  beyond  those  early  twenties 
when  the  mind  of  the  ''  budding  politician  "  ceases 
to  expand,  who  has  thought,  and  thought  things 
out,  who  is  an  educated  man  among  dexterous 
under-educated  specialists.  By  something  very 
like  a  belated  accident  in  the  framing  of  the  Amer- 
ican constitution,  the  President  of  the  United 
States  is  more  in  the  nature  of  a  selected  man  than 
any  other  conspicuous  figure  at  the  present  time. 
He  is  specially  elected  by  a  special  electoral  college 
after  an  elaborate  preliminary  selection  of  candi- 
dates by  the  two  great  parly  machines.  And  be  it 
remembered  that  Mr.  Wilson  is  not  the  first  great 
President  the  United  States  have  had,  he  is  one  of  a 


130  DEMOCRACY 

series  of  figures  who  tower  over  their  European  con- 
temporaries. The  United  States  have  had  many 
advantageous  circumstances  to  thank  for  their 
present  ascendancy  in  the  world's  affairs :  isolation 
from  militarist  pressure  for  a  century  and  a  quar- 
ter, a  vast  virgin  continent,  i)lenty  of  land,  freedom 
from  centralization,  freedom  from  titles  and  social 
vulgarities,  common  schools,  a  real  democratic 
spirit  in  its  people,  and  a  great  enthusiasm  for  uni- 
versities ;  but  no  single  advantage  has  been  so  great 
as  this  happy  accident  which  has  given  it  a  spe- 
cially selected  man  as  its  voice  and  figurehead  in 
the  world's  affairs.  In  the  average  congressman, 
in  the  average  senator,  as  Ostrogorski's  great  book 
so  industriously  demonstrated,  the  United  States 
have  no  great  occasion  for  pride.  Neither  the 
Senate  nor  the  House  of  Representatives  seem  to 
rise  above  the  level  of  the  British  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment, with  a  Government  unable  to  control  the  rebel 
forces  of  Ulster,  unable  to  promote  or  dismiss  gen- 
erals without  an  outcry,  weakly  amenable  to  the 
press,  and  terrifyingly  incapable  of  great  designs. 
It  is  to  the  United  States  of  America  we  must  look 
now  if  the  world  is  to  be  made  ''  safe  for  democ- 
racy.-' It  is  to  the  method  of  selection,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  delegation,  that  we  must  look  if 
democracy  is  to  be  saved  from  itself. 


THE  RECENT  STRUGGLE  FOR 

PROPORTIONAL  REPRESENTATION  IN 

GREAT  BRITAIN 

British  political  life  resists  cleansing  with  all  the 
vigour  of  a  dirty  little  boy.  It  is  nothing  to  your 
politician  that  the  economic  and  social  organization 
of  all  the  world  is  strained  almost  to  the  pitch  of 
collapse,  and  that  it  is  vitally  important  to  mankind 
that  everywhere  the  whole  will  and  intelligence  of 
the  race  should  be  enlisted  in  the  great  tasks  of 
making  a  permanent  peace  and  reconstructing  the 
shattered  framework  of  society.  These  are  remote, 
unreal  considerations  to  the  politician.  What  is 
the  world  to  him?  He  has  scarcely  heard  of  it. 
He  has  been  far  too  busy  as  a  politician.  He  has 
been  thinking  of  smart  little  tricks  in  the  lobby  and 
brilliant  exploits  at  question  time.  He  has  been 
thinking  of  jobs  and  appointments,  of  whether  Mr. 
Asquith  is  likely  to  "  come  back  '^  and  how  far  it  is 
safe  to  bank  upon  L.  G.  His  one  supreme  purpose 
is  to  keep  affairs  in  the  hands  of  his  own  specialized 
set,  to  keep  the  old  obscure  party  game  going,  to 

131 


132  DEMOCRACY 

rig  his  little  tricks  behind  a  vast,  silly  camouflags 
of  sham  issues,  to  keep  out  able  men  and  disin- 
terested men,  the  public  mind,  and  the  general  in- 
telligence from  any  effective  interference  with  his 
disastrous  manipulations  of  the  common  weal. 

I  do  not  see  how  any  intelligent  and  informed 
man  can  have  followed  the  recent  debates  in  the 
House  of  Commons  upon  Proportional  Representa- 
tion without  some  gusts  of  angry  contempt.  They 
were  the  most  pitiful  and  alarming  demonstration 
of  the  intellectual  and  moral  quality  of  British 
public  life  at  the  present  time. 

From  the  wire-pullers  of  the  Fabian  Society  and 
from  the  party  organizers  of  both  Liberal  and  Tory 
party  alike,  and  from  the  knowing  cards,  the  pot- 
house shepherds,  and  jobbing  lawyers  who  "  work  " 
the  constituencies,  comes  the  chief  opposition  to 
this  straightening  out  of  our  electoral  system  so 
urgently  necessary  and  so  long  overdue.  They 
have  fought  it  with  a  zeal  and  efficiency  that  is 
rarely  displayed  in  the  nation's  interest.  From 
nearly  every  outstanding  man  outside  that  little 
inner  world  of  political  shams  and  dodges,  who  has 
given  any  attention  to  the  question,  comes,  on  the 
other  hand,  support  for  this  reform.  Even  the 
great  party  leaders,  Mr.  Balfour  and  Mr.  Asquith, 
were  in  its  favour.  One  might  safely  judge  this 
question  by  considering  who  are  the  advocates  on 


DEMOCKACY  133 

either  side.  But  the  best  arguments  for  Propor- 
tioual  Representation  arise  out  of  its  opponents' 
speeches,  and  to  these  I  will  confine  my  attention 
now.  Consider  Lord  Harcourt  —  heir  to  the  most 
sacred  traditions  of  the  party  game  —  hurling 
scorn  at  a  project  that  would  introduce  "  faddists, 
mugwumps,-'  and  so  on  and  so  on  —  in  fact,  inde- 
pendent thinking  men  —  into  the  legislature.  Con- 
sider the  value  of  Lord  Curzon's  statement  that 
London  ^'  rose  in  revolt  "  against  the  project.  Do 
you  remember  that  day,  dear  reader,  when  the 
streets  of  London  boiled  with  passionate  men  shout- 
ing *'  No  Proportional  Pepresentation  I  Down 
with  Proportional  Representation''?  You  don't. 
Nor  do  1.  But  what  happened  was  that  the  guinea- 
pigs  and  solicitors  and  nobodies,  the  party  hacks 
wlio  form  the  bulk  of  London's  misrepresentation  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  stampeded  in  terror  against 
a  proposal  that  threatened  to  wipe  them  out  and  re- 
place them  by  known  and  responsible  men.  Lon- 
don, alas!  does  not  seem  to  care  how  its  members 
are  elected.  What  Londoner  knows  anything 
about  his  member?  Hundreds  of  thousands  of 
Londoners  do  not  even  know  which  of  the  ridicu- 
lous constituencies  into  which  the  politicians  have 
dismembered  our  London  they  are  in.  Only  as  I 
was  writing  this  in  my  flat  in  St.  James's  Court, 
Westminster,  did  it  occur  to  me  to  inquire  who  was 


134  DEMOCRACY 

representing  me  in  the  councils  of  the  nation  while 
I  write.  .  .  . 

After  some  slight  difficulty  I  ascertained  that 
my  representative  is  a  Mr.  Burdett  Coutts,  who 
was  in  the  romantic  eighties,  Mr.  Ashmead-Bartlett. 
And  by  a  convenient  accident  I  find  that  the  other 
day  he  moved  to  reject  the  Proportional  Repre- 
sentation Amendment  made  by  the  House  of  Lords 
to  the  Representation  of  the  Peoj)le  Bill,  so  that  I 
am  able  to  look  up  the  debate  in  Hansard  and 
study  my  opinions  as  he  represented  them  and  this 
question  at  one  and  the  same  time.  And,  taking 
little  things  first,  I  am  proud  and  happy  to  discover 
that  the  member  for  me  was  the  only  participator 
in  the  debate  who,  in  the  vulgar  and  reprehensible 
phrase,  "  threw  a  dead  cat,''  or,  in  polite  terms,  dis- 
played classical  learning.  My  member  said, 
'^  Timco  Danaos  et  dona  ferentes/'  with  a  rather 
graceful  compliment  to  the  Labour  Conference  at 
Nottingham.  "  I  could  not  help  thinking  to  my- 
self,'' said  my  member,  "  that  at  that  conference 
there  must  have  been  many  men  of  sufficient  clas- 
sical reading  to  say  to  themselves,  ^  Timco  Danaos 
et  dona  ferentes/^^  In  which  surmise  he  was 
quite  right.  Except  perhaps  for  '^  Tempiis  fugit/' 
"•'  verhum  sap./-  ^^  Arma  virmnque/-  and  ^^  Quis  cus- 
todiet/'  there  is  no  better  known  relic  of  antiquity. 
But  my  member  went  a  little  beyond  my  ideas  when 


DEMOCRACY  135 

he  said :  "  We  are  asked  to  enter  upon  a  method  of 
legislation  which  can  bear  no  other  description  than 
that  of  law-making  in  the  dark,"  because  I  think  it 
can  bear  quite  a  lot  of  other  descriptions.  This 
was,  however,  the  artistic  prelude  to  a  large,  vague, 
gloomy  dissertation  about  nothing  very  definite,  a 
muddling  up  of  the  main  question  with  the  minor 
issue  of  a  schedule  of  constituencies  involved  in  the 
proposal. 

The  other  parts  of  my  member's  speech  do  not,  I 
confess,  fill  me  with  the  easy  confidence  I  would 
like  to  feel  in  my  proxy.  Let  me  extract  a  few 
gems  of  eloquence  from  the  speech  of  this  voice 
which  speaks  for  me,  and  give  also  the  only  argu- 
ment he  advanced  that  needs  consideration.  "  His- 
tory repeats  itself,''  he  said,  "  very  often  in  curious 
ways  as  to  facts,  but  generally  with  very  different 
results.''  That,  honestly,  I  like.  It  is  a  sentence 
one  can  read  over  several  times.  But  he  went  on 
to  talk  of  the  entirely  different  scheme  for  minority 
representation,  which  was  introduced  into  the 
Reform  Bill  of  18G7,  and  there  I  am  ol)liged  to  part 
company  with  him.  That  was  a  silly  scheme  for 
giving  two  votes  to  each  voter  in  a  three-member 
constituency.  It  has  about  as  much  resemblance 
to  the  method  of  scientific  voting  under  discussion 
as  a  bath-chair  has  to  an  aeroplane.  "  But  that 
measure  of  minority  representation  led  to  a  baneful 


136  DEMOCRACY 

Invention,'-  my  representative  went  on  to  say,  ^'  and 
left  behind  it  a  hateful  memory  in  the  Birmingham 
caucus.  I  well  remember  that  when  I  stood  for 
Parliament  thirty-two  years  ago  ivc  had  no  better 
platform  weapon  than  repeatin(j  over  aiul  over 
again  in  a  sentence  the  name  of  Mr.  ScJniadJiorst, 
and  I  am  not  sure  that  it  would  not  serve  the  same 
purpose  now.  Under  that  system  the  work  of  the 
caucus  was,  of  course,  far  simpler  than  it  will  be  if 
this  system  ever  comes  into  operation.  All  the  cau- 
cus had  to  do  under  that  measure  w^as  to  divide  the 
electors  into  three  groui)s  and  with  three  candi- 
dates, A.,  r>.,  and  C,  to  order  one  group  to  vote  for 
A.  and  !>.,  another  for  B.  and  C,  and  the  third  for 
A.  and  C,  and  they  carried  the  whole  of  their  can- 
didates and  kept  them  for  many  years.  But  the 
multiplicity  of  ordinal  preferences,  second,  third, 
fourth,  fifth,  up  to  tenth,  which  the  single  transfer- 
able vote  system  would  involve,  will  require  a  more 
scientific  handling  in  party  interests,  and  neither 
party  will  be  able  to  face  an  election  with  any 
hope  of  success  without  the  assistance  of  the  most 
drastic  form  of  caucus  and  tvithout  its  orders  being 
carried  out  by  the  electors.-' 

Now,  I  swear  by  Heaven  that,  lowly  creature  as 
I  am,  a  lost  vote,  a  nothing,  voiceless  and  helpless 
in  public  affairs,  I  am  not  going  to  stand  the  impu- 
tation that  that  sort  of  reasoning  represents  the 


DEMOCRACY  137 

average  mental  quality  of  Westminster  —  outside 
Parliament,  tliat  is.  Most  of  my  neighbours  in  St. 
James's  Court,  for  exami)le,  have  quite  large  pieces 
of  head  above  their  eyebrows.  Read  these  above 
sentences  over  and  ponder  their  significance  —  so 
far  as  they  have  any  significance.  Never  mind  my 
keen  personal  humiliation  at  this  display  of  the 
mental  calibre  of  my  representative,  but  consider 
what  the  mental  calibre  of  a  House  must  be  that  did 
not  break  out  into  loud  guffaws  at  such  a  passage. 
The  line  of  argument  is  about  as  lucid  as  if  one 
reasoned  that  because  one  can  break  a  window  with 
a  stone  it  is  no  use  buying  a  telescope.  And  it  re- 
mains entirely  a  matter  for  speculation  whether 
my  member  is  arguing  that  a  caucus  can  rig  an  elec- 
tion carried  on  under  the  Proportional  Rejiresen- 
tation  system  or  that  it  cannot.  At  the  first  blush 
it  seems  to  read  as  if  he  intended  the  former.  But 
be  careful  I  Did  he?  Let  me  suggest  that  in  that 
last  sentence  he  really  expresses  the  opinion  that  it 
cannot.  It  can  be  read  either  way.  Electors 
under  modern  conditions  are  not  going  to  obey  the 
"  orders  "  of  even  the  "  most  drastic  caucus  " — 
whatever  a  "  drastic  caucus  •'  may  be.  Why  should 
they?  In  the  Birmingham  instance  it  was  only  a 
section  of  the  majority,  voting  by  wards,  in  an  elec- 
tion on  purely  party  lines,  which  ''  obeyed  • '  in  order 
to  keep  out  the  minority  party  candidate.     I  think 


138  DEMOCRACY 

myself  that  my  member's  mind  waggled.  Perhaps 
his  real  thoughts  shone  out  through  an  argument 
not  intended  to  betray  them.  What  he  did  say  as 
much  as  he  said  anything  was  that  under  Propor- 
tional Representation,  elections  are  going  to  be  very 
troublesome  and  difiScult  for  party  candidates.  If 
that  was  his  intention,  then,  after  all,  I  forgive  him 
much.  I  think  that  and  more  than  that.  I  think 
that  they  are  going  to  make  party  candidates  who 
are  merely  party  candidates  impossible.  That  is 
exactly  what  we  reformers  are  after.  Then  I  shall 
got  a  representative  more  to  my  taste  than  Mr. 
Burdett  Coutts. 

But  let  me  turn  now  to  the  views  of  other  people's 
representatives. 

Perhaps  the  most  damning  thing  ever  said 
against  the  present  system,  damning  because  of  its 
empty  absurdity,  was  uttered  by  Sir  Thomas  Whit- 
taker.  He  was  making  the  usual  exaggerations  of 
the  supposed  difiQculties  of  the  method.  He  said 
English  people  didn't  like  such  "  complications." 
They  like  a  "  straight  fight  between  two  men." 
Think  of  it  I  A  straight  fight  I  For  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  century  I  have  been  a  voter,  usually 
with  votes  in  two  or  three  constituencies,  and  never 
in  all  that  long  political  life  have  I  seen  a  single 
straight  fight  in  an  election,  but  only  the  dismallest 
sham  fights  it  is  possible  to  conceive.     Thrice  only 


DEMOCRACY  139 

in  all  that  time  have  I  cast  a  vote  for  a  man  whom 
I  respected.  On  all  other  occasions  the  election 
that  mocked  my  citizenship  was  either  an  arranged 
walk-over  for  one  party  or  the  other,  or  I  had  a 
choice  between  two  unknown  persons,  mysteriously 
selected  as  candidates  by  obscure  busy  people  with 
local  interests  in  the  constituency.  Every  intelli- 
gent person  knows  that  this  is  the  usual  experience 
of  a  free  and  independent  voter  in  England.  The 
"  fight ''  of  an  ordinary  Parliamentary  election  in 
England  is  about  as  "  straight ''  as  the  business  of 
a  thimble  rigger. 

And  consider  just  what  these  "  complications '' 
are  of  which  the  opponents  of  Proportional  Repre- 
sentation chant  so  loudly.  In  the  sham  election  of 
to-day,  which  the  politicians  claim  gives  them  a 
mandate  to  muddle  up  our  affairs,  the  voter  puts  a 
X  against  the  name  of  the  least  detestable  of  the 
two  candidates  that  are  thrust  upon  him.  Under 
the  Proportional  Representation  method  there  will 
be  a  larger  constituency,  a  larger  list  of  candidates, 
and  a  larger  number  of  people  to  be  elected,  and  he 
will  put  1  against  the  name  of  the  man  he  most 
wants  to  be  elected,  2  against  his  second  choice,  and 
if  he  likes  he  may  indulge  in  marking  a  third,  or 
even  a  further  choice.  He  may,  if  he  thinks  fit, 
number  off  the  whole  list  of  candidates.  That  is 
all  ho  Avill  have  to  do.     That  is  the  stupendous  in- 


140  DEMOCRACY 

tricaoy  of  the  method  that  flattens  out  the  minds  of 
Lord  Harcourt  aud  Sir  Thomas  Whittaker.  And 
as  for  tlie  working  of  it,  if  you  must  go  into  that, 
all  that  hajipens  is  that  if  your  first  choice  gets  more 
votes  than  he  needs  for  his  return,  he  takes  only  the 
fraction  of  your  vote  that  lie  requires,  and  tlie  rest 
of  the  vote  goes  on  to  your  Number  2.  If  2  isn't  in 
nee<l  of  all  of  it,  the  rest  goes  on  to  3.  And  so  on. 
That  is  the  profound  mathematical  mystery,  that  is 
the  riddle  beyond  the  wit  of  Westminster,  which 
overj)owers  these  fine  intelligences  and  sets  them 
babbling  of  "  senior  wranglers."  Each  time  there 
is  a  debate  on  this  question  in  the  House,  member 
after  member  hostile  to  the  i)roposal  will  i)lay  the 
ignorant  fool  and  pretend  to  be  confused  himself, 
and  will  try  to  confuse  others,  by  deliberately 
clumsy  statements  of  these  most  elementary  ideas. 
Surely  if  there  were  no  other  argument  for  a  change 
of  type  in  the  House,  these  poor  knitted  brows, 
these  public  perspirations  of  the  gentry  who  "  can- 
not understand  P.R.,"  should  suffice. 

But  let  us  be  just;  it  is  not  all  pretence;  the 
inability  of  Mr.  Austen  Chamberlain  to  grasp  the 
simple  facts  before  him  was  undoubtedly  genuine. 
He  followed  Mr.  Burdett  Coutts,  in  support  of  Mr. 
Burdett  Coutts,  with  the  most  Christian  disregard 
of  the  nasty  things  Mr.  Burdett  Coutts  had  seemed 
to  be  saying  about  the  Birmingham  caucus  from 


DEMOCRACY  141 

which  he  sprang.  He  had  a  childish  story  to  tell 
of  how  voters  would  not  give  their  lirst  votes  to 
their  real  preferences,  because  they  would  assume 
he  ''  would  get  in  in  any  case  '■ —  God  knows  why. 
Of  course  on  the  assumption  that  the  voter  behaves 
like  an  idiot,  anything  is  possible.  And  never  ap- 
parently having  heard  of  fractions,  this  great  Bir- 
mingham leader  was  unable  to  understand  that  a 
voter  who  puts  1  against  a  candidate's  name  votes 
for  that  candidate  anyhow.  He  could  not  imagine 
any  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  voter  that  No.  1  was 
his  man.  A  vote  is  a  vote  to  this  simple  rather 
than  lucid  mind,  a  thing  one  and  indivisible.  Read 
this  — 

"Birmingham/'  he  said,  referring  to  a  Schedule 
under  consideration,  "  is  to  be  cut  into  three  con- 
stituencies of  four  members  each.  I  am  to  have  a 
constituency  of  100,000  electors,  I  suppose.  How 
many  thousand  inhabitants  I  do  not  know.  Every 
effort  will  he  made  to  prevent  iuiij  of  those  electors 
knowing  —  in  fact,  it  would  he  impossihle  for  any 
of  them  to  know  —  ivhether  they  voted  for  me  or 
not,  or  at  any  rate  whether  they  effectively  voted 
fi)r  me  or  not,  or  whether  the  vote  which  they 
wished  to  give  to  me  was  really  diverted  to  some- 
hod  y  else/- 

Only  in  a  house  of  habitually  inattentive  men 
could  any  one  talk  such  nonsense  without  reproof, 


142  DEMOCRACY 

but  I  look  in  vain  through  Hansard's  record  of  this 
debate  lor  a  single  contemptuous  reference  to  Mr. 
Chamberlain's  obtuseness.  And  the  rest  of  his 
speech  was  a  lamentable  account  of  the  time  and 
trouble  he  wonld  have  to  spend  upon  his  constitu- 
ents if  the  new  method  came  in.  He  was  the  per- 
fect figure  of  the  parochially  important  person  in  a 
state  of  defensive  excitement.  No  doubt  his  speech 
appealed  to  many  in  the  House. 

Of  course  Lord  Harcourt  was  quite  right  in  say- 
ing that  the  character  of  the  average  House  of 
Commons  member  will  be  changed  by  Proportional 
Representation.  It  will.  It  will  make  the  election 
of  obscure  and  unknown  men,  of  carpet-bag  candi- 
dates who  work  a  constituency  as  a  haw^ker  w^orks 
a  village,  of  local  pomposities  and  village-pump 
'*  leaders  "  almost  impossible.  It  will  replace  such 
candidates  by  better  known  and  more  wddely  know^n 
men.  It  w^ill  make  the  House  of  Commons  so  much 
the  more  a  real  gathering  of  the  nation,  so  much 
the  more  a  house  of  representative  men.  (Lord 
Harcourt's  "  faddists  and  mugw^umps.")  And  it  is 
perfectly  true  as  Mr.  Ramsay  Macdonald  (also  an 
opponent)  declares,  that  Proportional  Representa- 
tion means  constituencies  so  big  that  it  will  be 
impossible  for  a  poor  man  to  cultivate  and  work 
them.  That  is  unquestionable.  But,  mark  an- 
other point,  it  will  also  make  it  useless,  as  Mr. 


DEMOCRACY  143 

Chamberlain  has  testified,  for  rich  men  to  cultivate 
and  work  them.  All  this  cultivating  and  working, 
all  this  going  about  and  making  things  right  with 
this  little  jobber  here,  that  contractor  there,  all 
the  squaring  of  small  political  clubs  and  organ- 
izations, all  the  subscription  blackmail  and  charity 
bribery,  that  now  makes  a  Parliamentary  candi- 
dature so  utterly  rotten  an  influence  upon  public 
life,  will  be  killed  dead  by  Proportional  Represen- 
tation. You  cannot  job  men  into  Parliament  by 
Proportional  Representation.  Proportional  Rep- 
resentation lets  in  the  outsider.  It  lets  in  the  com- 
mon, unassigned  voter  who  isn't  in  the  local  clique. 
That  is  the  clue  to  nearly  all  this  opposition  of  the 
politicians.  It  makes  democracy  possible  for  the 
first  time  in  modern  history.  And  that  poor  man 
of  Mr.  Ramsay  Macdonald's  imagination,  instead 
of  cadging  about  a  constituency  in  order  to  start 
politician,  will  have  to  make  good  in  some  more  use- 
ful way  —  as  a  leader  of  the  workers  in  their  prac- 
tical affairs,  for  example  —  before  people  will  hear 
of  him  and  begin  to  believe  in  him. 

The  opposition  to  Proportional  Representation 
of  Mr.  Sidney  Webb  and  his  little  circle  is  a  trifle 
more  "  scientific  "  in  tone  than  these  naive  objec- 
tions of  the  common  run  of  antagonist,  but  under- 
lying it  is  the  same  passionate  desire  to  keep  poli- 
tics a  close  game  for  the  politician  and  to  bar  out 


144  DEMOCRACY 

the  politicallj  unspecialized  num.  There  is  more 
conceit  and  less  jobbery  behind  the  criticisms  of 
this  type  of  mind.  It  is  an  opposition  based  on  the 
idea  that  the  common  man  is  a  fool  who  does  not 
know  what  is  good  for  him.  So  he  has  to  be  stam- 
peded. Politics,  according  to  this  school,  is  a  sort 
of  cattle-driving. 

The  Webbites  do  not  deny  the  broad  facts  of  the 
case.  Our  present  electoral  system,  with  our  big 
modern  constituencies  of  thousands  of  voters,  leads 
to  huge  turnovers  of  political  power  with  a  rela- 
tively small  shifting  of  jmblic  opinion.  It  makes  a 
mock  of  public  opinion  by  caricature,  and  Parlia- 
ment becomes  the  distorting  mirror  of  the  nation. 
Under  some  loud  false  issue  a  few  score  of  thou- 
sands of  votes  turn  over,  and  in  goes  this  party  or 
that  with  a  big  sham  majority.  This  the  Webbites 
admit.  But  they  applaud  it.  It  gives  us,  they 
say,  '•'  a  strong  Government."  Public  opinion,  the 
intelligent  man  outside  the  House,  is  ruled  out  of 
the  game.  He  has  no  power  of  intervention  at  all. 
The  artful  little  Fabian  politicians  rub  their  hands 
and  say,  ^^  Now  we  can  get  to  work  with  the  wires  I 
No  one  can  stop  us.''  And  when  the  public  com- 
plains of  the  results,  there  is  always  the  repartee, 
"  You  elected  them."  But  the  Fabian  psj'chology 
is  the  psychology  of  a  very  small  group  of  pedants 
who  believe  that  fair  ends  may  be  reached  by  foul 


DEMOCRACY  145 

means.  It  is  much  easier  and  more  natural  to 
serve  foul  ends  by  foul  means.  In  practice  it  is  not 
tricky  benevolence  but  tricky  bargaining  among 
the  interests  that  will  secure  control  of  the  po- 
litical wires.  That  is  a  bad  enough  state  of  af- 
fairs in  ordinary  times,  but  in  times .  of  tragic 
necessity  like  the  present,  men  will  not  be  mocked 
in  this  way.  Life  is  going  to  be  very  intense  in  the 
years  ahead  of  us.  If  we  go  right  on  to  another 
caricature  Parliament,  with  perhaps  half  a  hun- 
dred leading  men  in  it  and  the  rest  hacks  and 
nobodies,  the  baffled  and  discontented  outsiders  in 
the  streets  may  presently  be  driven  to  rioting  and 
the  throwing  of  bombs.  Unless,  indeed,  the  insur- 
rection of  the  outsiders  takes  a  still  graver  form, 
and  the  Press,  which  has  ceased  entirely  to  be  a 
Party  Press  in  Great  Britain,  helps  some  adven- 
turous Prime  Minister  to  flout  and  set  aside  the 
lower  House  altogether.  There  is  neither  much 
moral  nor  much  physical  force  behind  the  House  of 
Commons  at  the  present  time. 

The  argument  of  the  Fabian  opponents  to  Pro- 
portional Representation  is  frankly  that  the 
strongest  Government  is  got  in  a  House  of  half  a 
hundred  or  fewer  leading  men,  with  the  rest  of 
the  Parliament  driven  sheep.  But  the  whole  mis- 
chief of  the  present  system  is  that  the  obscure 
members  of  Parliament  are  not  sheep;  they  are  a 


146  DEMOCRACY 

crowd  of  little-minded,  second-rate  men  just  as 
greedy  and  eager  and  self-seeking  as  any  of  us. 
They  vote  straight  indeed  on  all  the  main  party 
questions,  they  obey  their  Whips  like  sheep  then; 
but  there  is  a  great  bulk  of  business  in  Parliament 
outside  the  main  party  questions,  and  obedience  is 
not  without  its  price.  These  are  matters  vitally 
affecting  our  railways  and  ships  and  communica- 
tions generally,  the  food  and  health  of  the  people, 
armaments,  every  sort  of  employment,  the  appoint- 
ment of  public  servants,  the  everyday  texture  of  all 
our  lives.  Then  the  nobody  becomes  somebody, 
the  party  hack  gets  busy,  the  rat  is  in  the 
granary.  .  .  . 

In  these  recent  debates  in  the  House  of  Commons 
one  can  see  every  stock  trick  of  the  wire-puller  in 
operation.  Particularly  we  have  the  old  dodge 
of  the  man  who  is  "  in  theory  quite  in  sympathy 
with  Proportional  Representation,  but  .  .  .''  It  is, 
he  declares  regretfully,  too  late.  It  will  cause 
delay.  Difficult  to  make  arrangements.  Later  on 
perhaps.  And  so  on.  It  is  never  too  late  for  a 
vital  issue.  Upon  the  speedy  adoption  of  Propor- 
tional Representation  depends,  as  Mr.  Balfour 
made  plain  in  an  admirable  speech,  whether  the 
great  occasions  of  the  peace  and  after  the  peace  are 
to  be  handled  by  a  grand  council  of  all  that  is  best 
and  most  leaderlike  in  the  nation,  or  whether  they 


DEMOCRACY  147 

are  to  be  left  to  a  few  leaders,  apparently  leading, 
but  really  profoundly  swayed  by  the  obscure  crowd 
of  politicians  and  jobbers  behind  them.  Are  the 
politicians  to  hamper  and  stifle  us  in  this  supreme 
crisis  of  our  national  destinies  or  are  we  British 
peoples  to  have  a  real  control  of  our  own  affairs  in 
this  momentous  time?  Are  men  of  light  and  pur- 
pose to  have  a  voice  in  public  affairs  or  not?  Pro- 
portional Representation  is  supremely  a  test  ques- 
tion. It  is  a  question  that  no  adverse  decision  in 
the  House  of  Commons  can  stifle.  There  are  too 
many  people  now  who  grasp  its  importance  and  sig- 
nificance. Every  one  who  sets  a  proper  value  upon 
purity  in  public  life  and  the  vitality  of  democratic 
institutions  will,  I  am  convinced,  vote  and  continue 
to  vote  across  every  other  question  against  the 
antiquated,  foul,  and  fraudulent  electoral  methods 
that  have  hitherto  robbed  democracy  of  three-quar- 
ters of  its  efificiency. 


XI 

THE  STUDY  AND  PROPAGANDA  OF 
DEMOCRACY 

In  the  preceding  chapter  I  have  dealt  with  the  dis- 
cussion of  Proportional  Representation  in  the 
British  House  of  Commons  in  order  to  illustrate  the 
intellectual  squalor  amidst  which  public  affairs 
have  to  be  handled  at  the  present  time,  even  in  a 
country  professedly  '^  democratic."  I  have  taken 
this  one  discussion  as  a  sample  to  illustrate  the 
present  imperfection  of  our  democratic  instrument. 
All  over  the  world,  in  every  country,  great  multi- 
tudes of  intelligent  and  serious  ])eople  are  now  in- 
spired by  the  idea  of  a  new  order  of  things  in  the 
world,  of  a  world  wide  establishment  of  peace  and 
mutual  aid  between  nation  and  nation  and  man  and 
man.  But,  chiefly  because  of  the  elementary 
crudity  of  existing  electoral  methods,  hardly  any- 
where at  present,  except  at  Washington,  do  these 
great  ideas  and  this  world  wide  will  tind  expression. 
Amidst  the  other  politicians  and  statesmen  of  the 
world  President  Wilson  towers  up  with  an  effect 
almost  divine.  But  it  is  no  ingratitude  to  him  to 
say  that  he  is  not  nearly  so  exceptional  a  being 

148 


DEMOCEACY  149 

among  educated  men  as  he  is  among  the  official 
leaders  of  mankind.  Everywhere  now  one  may 
fird  something  of  the  Wilson  purpose  and  intel- 
ligence, but  nearly  everywhere  it  is  silenced  or 
muffled  or  made  ineffective  by  the  political  ad- 
vantage of  privileged  or  of  violent  and  adventurous 
inferior  men.  He  is  "  one  of  us,"  but  it  is  his  good 
fortune  to  have  got  his  head  out  of  the  sack  that  is 
about  the  heads  of  most  of  us.  In  the  official  world, 
in  the  world  of  rulers  and  representatives  and 
"  statesmen,"  he,  almost  alone,  speaks  for  the 
modern  intelligence. 

This  general  stifling  of  the  better  intelligence  of 
the  world  and  its  possible  release  to  expression  and 
power,  seems  to  me  to  be  the  fundamental  issue  un- 
derlying all  the  present  troubles  of  mankind.  We 
cannot  get  on  while  everyw^here  fools  and  vulgarians 
hold  the  levers  that  can  kill,  imprison,  silence  and 
starve  men.  We  cannot  get  on  with  false  govern- 
ment and  w^e  cannot  get  on  with  mob  government; 
we  must  have  right  government.  The  intellectual 
people  of  the  world  have  a  duty  of  co-operation  they 
have  too  long  neglected.  The  modernization  of  po- 
litical institutions,  the  study  of  these  institutions 
until  we  have  worked  out  and  achieved  the  very  best 
and  most  efficient  methods  w^hereby  the  whole  com- 
munity of  mankind  may  work  together  under  the 
direction  of  its  chosen  intelligences,  is  the  common 


150  DEMOCRACY 

duty  of  every  one  who  has  a  brain  for  the  service. 
And  before  everything  else  we  have  to  realize  this 
crudity  and  imperfection  in  what  we  call  ^^  democ- 
racy "  at  the  present  time.  Democracy  is  still 
chiefly  an  aspiration,  it  is  a  spirit,  it  is  an  idea; 
for  the  most  part  its  methods  are  still  to  seek. 
And  still  more  is  this  "  League  of  Free  Xations  "  as 
yet  but  an  aspiration.  Let  us  not  underrate  the 
task  before  us.  Only  the  disinterested  devotion  of 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  active  brains  in  school, 
in  pulpit,  in  book  and  press  and  assembly  can  ever 
bring  these  redeeming  conceptions  down  to  the  solid 
earth  to  rule. 

All  round  the  world  there  is  this  same  obscura- 
tion of  the  real  intelligence  of  men.  In  Germany, 
human  good  will  and  everj'  fine  mind  are  subor- 
dinated to  political  forms  that  have  for  a  mouth- 
piece a  Chancellor  with  his  brains  manifestly 
addled  by  the  theories  of  Welt-Politik  and  the  Bis- 
marckian  tradition,  and  for  a  figurehead  a  mad 
Kaiser.  Nevertheless  there  comes  even  from  Ger- 
many muffled  cries  for  a  new  age.  A  grinning 
figure  like  a  bloodstained  Punch  is  all  that  speaks 
for  the  best  brains  in  Bulgaria.  Yes.  We  Western 
allies  know  all  that  by  heart;  but,  after  all,  the 
immediate  question  for  each  one  of  us  is,  "^  What 
speaks  for  mef ''  So  far  as  official  political  forms 
go  I  myself  am  as  ineffective  as  any  right-thinking 


DEMOCRACY  151 

German  or  Bulgarian  could  possibly  be.  I  am 
more  ineffective  than  a  Galician  Pole  or  a  Bohe- 
mian who  votes  for  his  nationalist  representative. 
Politically  I  am  a  negligible  item  in  the  con- 
stituency of  this  Mr.  Burdett  Coutts  into  whose 
brain  we  have  been  peeping.  Politically  I  am  less 
than  a  waistcoat  button  on  that  quaint  figure. 
And  that  is  all  I  am  —  except  that  I  revolt.  I 
have  written  of  it  so  far  as  if  it  were  just  a  joke. 
But  indeed  bad  and  foolish  political  institutions 
cannot  be  a  joke.  Sooner  or  later  they  prove  them- 
selves to  be  tragedy.  This  war  is  that.  It  is  yes- 
terday's lazy,  tolerant  "  sense  of  humour  "  wading 
out  now  into  the  lakes  of  blood  it  refused  to  foresee. 
It  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  anywhere  to-day 
the  nationalisms,  the  suspicions  and  hatreds,  the 
cants  and  policies,  and  dead  phrases  that  sway  men 
represent  the  current  intelligence  of  mankind. 
They  are  merely  the  evidences  of  its  disorganiza- 
tion. Even  now  we  know  we  could  do  far  better. 
Give  mankind  but  a  generation  or  so  of  peace  and 
right  education  and  this  world  could  mock  at  the 
poor  imaginations  that  conceived  a  millennium. 
But  we  have  to  get  intelligences  together,  we  have 
to  canalize  thought  before  it  can  work  and  produce 
its  due  effects.  To  that  end,  I  suppose,  there  has 
been  a  vast  amount  of  mental  activity  among  us 
l^olitical  "  negligibles.'^     For  my  own  part  I  have 


152  DEMOCRACY 

thought  of  the  idea  of  God  as  the  banner  of  human 
unity  and  justice,  and  I  have  made  some  tentatives 
in  that  direction,  but  men,  I  perceive,  have  argued 
themselves  mean  and  petty  about  religion.     At  the 
word  "  God  "  passions  bristle.     The  word  "  God  '^ 
does  not  unite  men,  it  angers  them.     But  I  doubt  if 
God  cares  greatly  Avhether  we  call  Him  God  or  no. 
His  service  is  the  service  of  man.     This  double  idea 
of  the  League  of  Free  Nations,  linked  with  the  idea 
of  democracy  as  universal  justice,  is  free  from  the 
jealousy  of  the  theologians  and  great  enough  for 
men  to  unite  upon  everywhere.     I  know  how  warily 
one  must  reckon  with  the  spite  of  the  priest,  but 
surely  these  ideas  may  call  upon  the  teachers  of  all 
the  great  world  religions  for  their  support.     The 
world  is  full  now  of  confused  propaganda,  propa- 
ganda of  national  ideas,  of  traditions  of  hate,  of 
sentimental  and  degrading  loyalties,  of  every  sort 
of  error  that  divides  and  tortures  and  slays  man- 
kind.    All  human  institutions  are  made  of  propa- 
ganda, are  sustained  by   propaganda  and  perish 
when  it  ceases;  they  must  be  continually  explained 
and  re-explained  to  the  young  and  the  negligent. 
And   for  this  new"  world   of  democracy   and  the 
League  of  Free  Nations  to  which  all  reasonable  men 
are  looking,  there  must  needs  be  the  greatest  of 
all  propagandas.     For  that  cause  every  one  must 
become  a  teacher  and  a  missionary.     "  Persuade  to 


DEMOCRACY  153 

it  and  make  the  idea  of  it  and  the  necessity  for  it 
plain,"  that  is  the  duty  of  every  school  teacher, 
every  tutor,  every  religious  teacher,  every  writer, 
every  lecturer,  every  parent,  every  trusted  friend 
throughout  the  world.  For  it,  too,  every  one  must 
become  a  student,  must  go  on  with  the  task  of  mak- 
ing vague  intentions  into  definite  intentions,  of 
analyzing  and  destroying  obstacles,  of  mastering 
the  ten  thousand  difiQculties  of  detail.  .  .  . 

I  am  a  man  who  looks  now  towards  the  end  of 
life;  fifty-one  years  have  I  scratched  off  from  my 
calendar,  another  slips  by,  and  I  cannot  tell  how 
many  more  of  the  sparse  remainder  of  possible 
years  are  really  mine.  I  live  in  days  of  hardship 
and  privation,  when  it  seems  more  natural  to  feel 
ill  than  well;  without  holidays  or  rest  or  peace; 
friends  and  the  sons  of  my  friends  have  been  killed ; 
death  seems  to  be  feeling  always  now  for  those  I  most 
love ;  the  newspapers  that  come  in  to  my  house  tell 
mostly  of  blood  and  disaster,  of  drownings  and 
slaughterings,  of  cruelties  and  base  intrigues.  Yet 
never  have  I  been  so  sure  that  there  is  a  divinity  in 
man  and  that  a  great  order  of  human  life,  a  reign  of 
justice  and  world-wide  happiness,  of  plenty,  power, 
hope,  and  gigantic  creative  effort,  lies  close  at  hand. 
Even  now  we  have  the  science  and  the  ability  avail- 
able for  a  universal  welfare,  though  it  is  scattered 
about  the  world  like  a  handful  of  money  dropped 


154  DEMOCKACY 

by  a  child,  even  now  there  exists  all  the  knowledge 
that  is  needed  to  make  mankind  universally  free 
and  human  life  sweet  and  noble.  We  need  but  the 
faith  for  it,  and  it  is  at  hand;  we  need  but  the 
courage  to  lay  our  hands  upon  it  and  in  a  little 
space  of  years  it  can  be  ours. 


THE  END 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


T 


HE  following   pages    contain    advertisements    of 
Macmillan  books  by  the  same  author. 


H.  G.  WELLS'  LATEST  NOVEL 


The  Soul  of  a  Bishop 


By  the  Author  of  "  Mr.  Britling  " 

Cloth,  $1.50;  Leather,  $2.50 

**  Its  portrait  of  the  Bishop  is  masterly,  it  has  power  and  inter- 
est."—  New  York  Times. 

"The  book  is  enormously  suggestive." — Philadelphia  Public 
Ledger. 

"  The  reader  follows  with  breathless  interest  the  narrative  of 
his  passionate  quest  for  a  real  God  and  a  real  religion,  and  the 
poverty  and  hardship  in  which  this  quest  involve  him  and  his 
family.  .  .  .  But  the  questions  are  so  frankly  what  any  one  of  us 
may  be  asking  if  the  war  comes  home  to  us  as  vitally  as  it  has 
to  England,  that  the  reader  follows  with  absorbed  interest  the 
Bishop's  inner  struggles  and  cannot  but  be  stirred  to  clearer 
thinking.  .  .  .  The  sincerity  and  earnestness  of  this  quest  of  a 
very  human  man  for  something  that  will  satisfy  the  spirit  within 
is  what  one  feels  and  what  is  convincing.  .  .  .  Will  help  clear  the 
mental  atmosphere  for  many.  For  others  it  will  stir  to  a  work 
much  needed  at  the  present  time  —  thinking,  that  there  may  be 
the  sifting  necessary  when  the  new  shall  appear.  .  .  .  The  book 
cannot  but  be  helpful  to  those  battling  their  way  through  forms 
and  creeds  and  dogmas  to  pure  truth.  It  is  written  sincerely  and 
earnestly  by  one  who  tells  frankly  what  he  has  found  on  the 
road." —  Philadelphia  Telegraph. 

"Era  making.  ...  A  tour  de  force,  a  power,  that  will  make 
people  think,  that  will,  perhaps,  start  a  vast  movement.  In  any 
event  it  is  a  vital,  a  compelling  contribution  to  the  life  of  these 
times.  It  is  the  '  Robert  Elsmere '  of  its  day.  No  one  who 
would  understand  the  new  world  forces  that  have  been  un- 
leashed and  are  so  feebly  known  about  should  pass  it  by.  It  is, 
in  brief,  a  book  that  must  be  rtd.6..''— Brooklyn  Daily  Eagle. 

"  Utmost  dash  and  brilliancy.  ...  As  brilliant  a  piece  of  writ- 
ing as  Mr.  Wells  has  ever  offered  the  public;  it  is  entertaining 
from  beginning  to  end.  ...  It  should  arouse  some  serious 
thought  even  in  those  who  will  be  most  shocked  by  the  attacks 
on  dogmatic  religion." — New  York  Sun. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers     64-66  Fifth  Avenue     New  York 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

Italy,  France  and 
Britain  at  War 

By  H.  G.  wells 

Author  of  "  Mr.  Britling  Sees  It  Through," 

"  What  Is  Coming,"'  etc. 

$1.50 

Here  Mr.  Wells  discusses  with  an  incisiveness  and  penetrative- 
ness  all  his  own,  conditions  as  he  has  seen  them  in  three  of  the 
great  countries  engaged  in  the  European  War.  The  book  is 
divided  into  four  main  sections :  I :  The  Passing  of  the  Effigy, 
in  which  are  reviewed  certain  changing  sentiments  as  regards 
war;  IL  The  War  in  Italy,  taking  up  The  Isonzo  Front,  The 
Mountain  War  and  Behind  the  Front;  III.  The  Western  War, 
and  IV.  How  People  Think  About  the  War,  in  which  are  found 
such  topics  as  Do  They  Really  Think  at  All,  The  Yielding  Paci- 
fist, The  Religious  Revival  and  The  Social  Changes  in  Progress. 

God  the  Invisible  King 

$i.25A 

Readers  of  "  Mr.  Britling  Sees  It  Through  "  were  particularly 
impressed  with  the  religious  note  which  it  sounded  especially  in 
its  closing  pages.  The  fundamental  ideas  of  God  and  of  the 
spiritual  Hfe  of  man  therein  set  forth  were  responsible  to  no  in- 
considerable degree  for  the  tremendous  appeal  of  that  story. 
These  facts  make  this  volume  in  which  Mr.  Wells  sets  out  as 
forcibly  and  exactly  as  possible  his  religious  belief,  of  great 
value.  Mr.  Wells  describes  the  book  himself  as  one  written  by  a 
man  "  sympathetic  with  all  sincere  religious  feelings  "  and  yet  a 
man  who  feels  that  he  must  protest  against  those  dogmas  which 
have  obscured,  perverted  and  prevented  the  religious  life  of  man- 
kind. The  spirit  of  this  book,  he  says,  is  like  that  of  a  mission- 
ary, who  would  only  too  gladly  overthrow  and  smash  some 
Polynesian  divinity  of  shark's  teeth  and  painted  wood  and 
mother-of-pearl.  The  purpose  of  the  volume  like  the  purpose  of 
that  missionary  is  not  primarily  to  shock  and  insult  but  to  liber- 
ate—  the  author  is  impatient  with  the  reverence  that  stands  be- 
tween man  and  God. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers     64r-66  Fifth  Aventie     New  York 


By  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


Mr.  Britling  Sees  It  Through 


$i.6o 


"  A  powerful,  strong  story.  Has  wonderful  pages  .  .  .  gems 
of  emotional  literature.  .  .  .  Nothing  could  express  the  whole, 
momentous  situation  in  England  and  in  the  United  States  in  so 
few  words  and  such  convincing  tone.  .  .  .  For  clear  thinking  and 
strong  feeling,  the  finest  picture  of  the  crises  in  the  Anglo-Saxon 
world  that  has  yet  been  produced." — Philadelphia  Public  Ledger. 

"  Not  only  Mr.  Wells'  best  book,  but  the  best  book  so  far  pub- 
lished concerning  the  war." —  Chicago  Tribune. 

"  The  most  thoughtfully  and  carefully  worked-out  book  Mr. 
Wells  has  given  us  for  many  a  year.  ...  A  veritable  cross- 
section  of  contemporary  English  life  .  .  .  admirable,  full  of  color 
and  utterly  convincing."— iV^ze;  York  Times. 

"  A  war  epic.  .  .  .  To  read  it  is  to  grasp,  as  perhaps  never  be- 
fore, the  state  of  affairs  among  those  to  whom  war  is  the  actual 
order  of  the  day.  Impressive,  true,  tender,  .  .  .  infinitely  moving 
and  potent." — Chicago  Tribune. 

"  For  the  first  time  we  have  a  novel  which  touches  the  life  of 
the  last  two  years  without  impertinence.  This  is  a  really  remark- 
able event,  and  Mr.  Wells'  book  is  a  proud  achievement.  .  .  .  The 
free  sincerity  of  this  book,  with  its  unfailing  distinction  of  tone, 
is  beautiful  ...  a  creation  with  which  we  have  as  yet  seen,  in 
this  country  at  least,  nothing  whatever  to  compare." — London 
Times. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers     64-66  Fifth  Avenue     New  York 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

What  is  Coming? 

Cloth,  i2mo,  $1.50 

This  book  is  a  forecast  of  the  consequences  of  the  war.  The 
profound  psychological  changes,  the  industrial  and  diplomatic 
developments,  the  reorganizations  in  society  which  are  sure  to 
follow  so  great  an  upheaval  of  the  established  institutions,  are 
subjects  to  which  Mr.  Wells  devotes  his  deep  insight  into  men's 
minds. 

"  Wells  speaks  with  remarkable  sureness  and  conviction.  .  .  . 
The  voice  of  the  prophet  is  well  tempered  and  moderate,  and  the 
nations  discussed  will  do  well  to  heed." —  Chicago  Herald. 

"  Of  widest  interest  and  consequence  are  Mr.  Wells's  study 
and  discussion  of  those  present  international  tendencies,  indeed, 
he  forecasts,  some  sort  of  leaguing  together  of  the  nations  look- 
ing toward  a  greater  measure  of  peace  than  the  world  has  here- 
tofore enjoyed." — New  York  Times. 

The  Research  Magnificent 

Cloth,  i2mo,  $1.50 

Not  a  book  for  readers  of  trashy  novels,  but  one  to  appeal  to 
the  intelligence  of  those  who  try  to  look  on  life  with  fearless 
eyes,  who  feel  the  significance  of  our  own  times  and  see  in  the 
deeds  and  dreams  of  today  the  aspirations  of  mankind. 

"  A  notable  novel,  perhaps  its  author's  greatest  .  .  .  might  al- 
most be  called  an  epitome  of  human  existence." — Chicago  Her- 
ald. 

"  A  novel  of  distinct  interest,  with  a  powerful  appeal  to  the 
intellect." — New  York  Herald. 

"  Challenges  discussion  at  a  hundred  points.  It  abounds  in 
stimulating  ideas." — New  York  Times. 

"A  noble,  even  a  consecrated  work  ...  the  crown  of  his  ca- 
reer."—  New  York  Globe. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers     64-66  Fifth  Avenue     New  York 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

The  Wife  of  Sir  Isaac  Harman 

Cloth,  i2mo,  $1.50 

"  Easily  the  best  piece  of  fiction  of  the  book  season." — Graphic. 

"  The  book  has  all  the  attractive  Wells  whimsies,  piquancies, 
and  fertilities  of  thought,  and  the  story  is  absolutely  good  to 
read." — New  York  World. 

"This  time  Mr.  Wells  is  very  little  of  a  socialist,  considerably 
of  a  philosopher,  prevailing  humorous,  and  always  clever." —  The 
Bellman. 

"  A  new  novel  by  H.  G.  Wells  is  always  a  treat,  and  '  The  Wife 
of  Sir  Isaac  Harman '  will  prove  no  disappointment.  .  .  .  The 
book  in  many  ways  is  one  of  the  most  successful  this  versatile 
sociologist  has  turned  out." — La  Follette's  Magazine. 


Bealby 


With  frontispiece,  cloth,  i2mo,  $1.50 


"  '  Bealby '  because  of  its  sprightly  style  and  multitude  of  inci- 
dents is  never  wearisome." — Boston  Transcript. 

"  Such  an  excursion  into  the  realm  of  fun  as  Wells  has  not 
made  since  '  The  History  of  Mr.  Polly.'  .  .  .  There  are  more 
sparkles  to  the  square  inch  than  in  any  other  Wells  book." — 
Cincinnati  Enquirer. 

"  Mr.  Wells  has  written  a  book  as  unpolitical  as  '  Alice  in  Won- 
derland' and  as  innocent  of  economics  as  of  astrology.  A  deli- 
ciously  amusing  comedy  of  action  swift,  violent,  and  fantastic." 
—  New  York  Times. 

*'  It  is  Wells  on  a  vacation,  a  vacation  from  the  war ;  a  vacation 
that  will  be  enjoyed  by  every  one  who  takes  it  with  him," — New 
York  Globe. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers     64-€6  Fifth  Avenue     New  York 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

The  War  in  the  Air 

Illustrated,  ismo,  $1.50 

"  It  is  not  every  man  who  can  write  a  story  of  the  improbable 
and  make  it  appear  probable,  and  yet  that  is  what  Mr.  Wells  has 
done  in  '  The  War  in  the  Air/  "—  The  Outlook. 

"A  more  entertaining  and  original  story  of  the  future  has 
probably  never  been  written." —  Town  and  Country. 

"...  Displays  that  remarkable  ingenuity  for  which  Mr.  Wells 
is  now  famous." —  Washington  Star. 

"Forcible  in  the  extreme." — Baltimore  Sun. 

"  It  is  an  exciting  tale,  a  novel  military  history." —  A^.  Y.  Post. 

New  Worlds  for  Old 

Cloth,  i2mo,  $1.50 

"...  is  a  readable,  straightaway  account  of  Socialism;  it  is 
singularly  informing  and  all  in  an  undidactic  way." —  Chicago 
Evening  Post. 

"  The  book  impresses  us  less  as  a  defence  of  Socialism  than  as 
a  work  of  art.  In  a  literary  sense,  Mn  W'ells  has  never  done 
anything  better." — Argonaut. 

"...  a  very  good  introduction  to  Socialism.  It  will  attract 
and  interest  those  who  are  not  of  that  faith,  and  correct  those 
who  aiTt."—The  Dial. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers     64-66  Fifth  Avenue     New  York 


COLTTATPJ^'    T^^ 


DATE  DUE 

OCTOl'^OUl    _ 

#■ 

f                                    

,     -       U'"^ 

t» 

^^ 

ruS 

MOV  4     \^\^ 


940.91 


1Y46255 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 

0035523549 


I    in 


r-4  rn 


